Distance Driving

[flemmerl@rcbhsc.wvu.edu (Flemmer, Linda)]

TStampke wrote:
> 
> Susan Evans Garlinghouse wrote:
> > that endurance driving is an up and coming sport, 
> 
> Speaking of, what happened to the endurance driving?  Is it still up and
> going?  I seem to remember hearing about competition years ago, but
> nothing recently....

The Northeast has a group called ECTRA ( a competitive trail riding
group that essentially uses a BC format to decide a winner - no
horsemanship judging).  They also sponsor Competitive Driving for
varying distances, usually in conjunction with a CTR.  This is the only
version of distance driving that I was aware of.  

I do know there is european driving format of timed obstales, dressage,
and distance, but I'm not terribly familiar with it.  We had the
opportunity to drive some Friesians in the timed obstacles and the
dressage portions when we went to Holland (the Netherlands) a few years
ago.  It was a blast!  We had to have a cousin translate the dressage
test from Dutch to English for us.  Some of the on-the-spot translations
were <interesting>, but we made it through!  (example:  "Extend" came
out as "longer the leg")  The timed obstacles was trickier than it
looked, and our two cousins made it look <so> easy.  :-(

Linda Flemmer