Like so many things in my life, I came to driving horse-drawn carriages quite by chance. I had started riding quite young - in spite of the warnings of my father, for many years a professional cavalry officer, that all horses were dangerous and to be avoided at all costs.
My first recollection of riding was on the endless beaches of the Black Sea while on a visit to my cousin Michael who, owing to the erratic behaviour of his father, King Carol, and the vagaries of Romanian politics of the time, happened to be king of that country. This was in 1928 when we were both seven years old.
After that my riding was spasmodic until my Uncle Dickie, at that time Lord Louis Mountbatten, got me onto one of his polo ponies and sent me off to try to hit a ball about with a polo stick. This might have led to my playing the game, but unfortunately the war intervened.
Fate, or rather the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, decreed that I should spend 1949 and 1950 in Malta, where my uncle was commanding the 1st Cruiser Squadron. This time he succeeded in persuading me to take up the game properly. I accepted his offer of a couple of ponies and played regularly at Cowdray and eventually at Windsor for the next twenty years.
The International Equestrian Federation
My polo playing gave me some credibility in the equestrian world and in 1964, after having had my name put forward by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, I was elected President of the International Equestrian Federation.
I therefore came to competition carriage driving from the administrative side of competitive sports. Through the federation, I got involved in compiling a set of rules for competition carriage driving, which meant that I had to educate myself about this new sport, of which I knew very little.
A new sport for a new age
Carriage driving was growing in popularity at the same time that I was in the throes of giving up polo. I was already beginning to notice that each year it took me longer, and required more effort, to maintain my handicap and injuries took longer to heal. Furthermore, I was plagued with a dodgy wrist. As my 50th birthday was in 1971, I thought this would be a good age to give up the game.
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The Duke of Edinburgh goes through the 'waterhagard' obstacle during the world four-in-hand carriage driving championship at Ascot in 1986 |
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I suppose I could have left it at that, but I have never felt comfortable as a spectator and I started to think seriously about what I might take up as an alternative to polo. It occurred to me that carriage driving might be just the sport for someone in middle age. The Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace was full of horses and carriages; the stables at Windsor, where I kept my polo ponies, were available, and I could do all my practicing in Windsor Great Park or at Sandringham.
First attempts
I started by learning to drive a team of ponies at Balmoral. I sent the ponyman from Balmoral to go to the Royal Mews to learn how to harness the ponies together and put them to a carriage, whilst I bought a book on the subject and set about teaching myself.
My first outing with a team of ponies was an interesting occasion. It was a completely new experience for the mixed team of Haflingers and Highland ponies and they were quite evidently mystified. Fortunately all went well, and I had started a new and somewhat unlikely leisure career. |
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Driving a team through the countryside is great fun because you experience your surroundings in a very special and different way: you go faster than someone on foot; you sit higher and, therefore get a better view; you are in the open and so you can say 'good morning' to people as you pass; it is less physically demanding, since you sit there while your team does all the work; and, above all, you get to drive through some of the most spectacular landscapes in this country.
Competition driving
I soon progressed from ponies to horses, borrowing five Cleveland Bays from the Royal Mews together with a set of neck-collar harnesses and a big wooden carriage known as the Balmoral Dogcart. I took them to Sandringham for the winter break and by the end of the break in 1973, I felt that I had made sufficient progress to risk entering a competition.
I took part in a competition at Lowther in 1973 and, despite some set-backs in the dressage event, I finished up in fourth place.
There are three disciplines in competitive carriage driving events: dressage which requires poise and control; the cones which tests speed and agility; and the marathon, a cross country discipline which requires a great deal of stamina and strength. |
I had a talent for dressage and was fairly reliable in the cones, but was not a huge success in marathons. Luckily, this meant that I always had a chance of being selected for championships in the hope that I might do well in my stronger areas, while other members of the team would have a talent for the marathon.
My moderate success at Lowther led to an invitation to take part in the European Championships later that year in which I came 17th, followed by another event in Cirencester from which I took home another fourth, and by now I was firmly hooked on my new sport.
As I continued driving, the sport really caught on in Britain, where new national events were being added to the calendar each year and local clubs were being formed. I was doing well in national events and was invited to be a member of the British team for the European Championships in Poland in 1975 in which I came 20th overall.
Although I was competing regularly with the horses, I continued to drive a team of Fell ponies at Balmoral and I started serious competing with ponies in 1981 at a small event in Balmoral in which I scraped into second place.
I have enjoyed mixed success in competition, but have always continued because of my love of the sport. 1979 in particular was a dreadful year. In one competition, at Mellerstain in Scotland, I drew a veil over my results, instead focussing on a rather comical episode in my diary entry:
"Everything came unstuck in the cross country! It rained, the horses pulled, I made mistakes in every obstacle, fell off the carriage and nearly got run away with down the hill (my Referee bailed out!). I had just mentioned to him that one of my leaders - Piper - always pulled downhill, and looking round I saw that he had gone. It was only later that I discovered that he had chased after the carriage and got onto the back step. Needless to say, this was all seen by, or gleefully reported to, his friends, who ribbed him unmercifully."
I did, however, enjoy some triumphs along the way, including achieving my first win at the Norfolk Show in 1982, eight years into my carriage driving career.
Extra-curricular activities
In addition to the thrill of carriage driving, I have also been involved in various behind-the-scenes activities related to the sport.
I promoted the sport by persuading the Windsor Horse Show and other agricultural shows to organise international driving events; have been involved in designing obstacles for the marathon discipline; and in 2003 I accepted an offer to judge the dressage discipline at a club event. Incidentally, according to the International Equestrian Federation, I am too old to be a judge in international competitions, but, fortunately, not too old to be a competitor!
Over the years, I have regularly had to do some interesting juggling acts with my sporting life and my Royal duties, using my horses for both private and State occasions, sometimes on the same day.
In 1982, I rode one of my driving horses, Solomon, in The Queen's Birthday Parade in the morning, before using him for a coaching club meet and dinner at Hampton Court that evening. All the horses driven that day also went on to Royal Ascot where they took part in the carriage procession up the racecourse.
I like to think that sometimes, while drowsily munching their hay behind the bars of their comfortable boxes in deepest London, they remember trotting over Askham Fell at Lowther in sluicing rain, or down sunny country lanes at Sandringham, or perhaps of galloping through the cones in a drive-off somewhere behind the Iron Curtain in Europe.
Memorable drives
Over the years many drives have been memorable, for both good and bad reasons. But some in particular stand out.
One of my most unusual carriage driving experiences was at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, which I attended in my capacity as President of the International Equestrian Federation.
The last event was the team jumping competition, which took place in the specially built arena on the Santa Anita racecourse. On race days, the racecourse uses six shire horses to pull the starting gates into position, and on the day before the final event, I was persuaded to drive the Shires into the arena with the medal winners' platforms on a low loader. I had never driven six horses before, but they behaved immaculately in front of a crowd of some 30,000.
Another unforgettable drive took place in very different circumstances, on home ground. When I was driving a team at Windsor, my Head Groom found a sleigh in the carriage house and suggested taking it to Sandringham in case it snowed in January. By one of those extraordinary coincidences, we had a serious blizzard, and I was able to drive the team to this sleigh for a week. The whole countryside was white and the sleigh slid across the snow in an eerie silence. To my relief, the horses accepted this novel situation without concern.
The future
I am getting old, my reactions are getting slower, and my memory is unreliable, but I have never lost the sheer pleasure of driving a team through the British countryside. I have been fortunate to have had a longer innings than most, and I have no intention of giving up while I have a team of willing ponies and dedicated staff and while I can still cope with the challenges which carriage driving presents me with. What happens next is anyone's guess.
The above extracts are taken from "30 years on and off the box seat" by The Duke of Edinburgh, published by Robert Hale Limited.
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