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California Riding Magazine • February, 2012 Horse of the Month: by Kim F. Miller • photos by Picsofyou.com |
Becoming the USEF's National Champion Single Combined Driving Horse is an impressive feat under any circumstances. It was all the more so for Bethesda After Dark, "Shadow," last year because he faced two big challenges. The first is living on the West Coast, a relatively remote outpost for the East Coast-centric sport. And the second is living 3,000 miles away from his owner and long-time competition partner Scott Monroe. The feisty Morgan gelding lives with trainer Leslie Berndl, of Whispering Oaks Performance Horses in the Auburn area's Newcastle. Leslie began working with Shadow nearly three years ago. He arrived with an already stellar resume: he'd earned national champion singles honors in 2005 and 2006 and he and Scott had represented the U.S. in international competition twice.
Scott bought the now 18-year-old as a 2-year-old and they learned the sport together. "As has been normal in my life, I did things a little backwards," laughs Scott, who lives in Connecticut. One drive with his neighbor, the late Charlie Kellogg, a co-founder of the American Driving Society, got Scott hooked on both driving and horse ownership. In short order, Scott bought Shadow and figured out how to get along with him by reading the natural horsemanship techniques of Tom Dorrance, John Lyons and others and with the help of a local coach, Margaret Beeman. Scott learned to ride and drive Shadow, getting help from top American competitors Lisa Singer and Larry Poulin in the driving department. The end result of their education was competitive success, plus a horse-human bond that enables Scott and Shadow to succeed even when they haven't seen each other, let alone gone out on a drive, for sometimes several months at a time. "Well, I do like a challenge," Scott notes. "I can get worried when I think that the other drivers I'm competing against keep their horses at home and are probably driving five or six days a week, whereas I may drive Shadow for a total of an hour and a half during a three-day visit to Leslie. But whenever I pick up the reins, it's like we've never been separated. There is definitely a bond there. He listens to me and he's willing to give me whatever I ask of him." An uncharacteristic soundness issue that forced Scott and Shadow to drop out of a training session for the 2008 World Championships brought the Connecticut pair and the Californian together. Scott accepted coach Lisa Singer's request that he come to the session to work with other drivers, almost all of whom except Leslie were familiar driving buddies. He was immediately impressed with her horsemanship. "I judge a person not by how well they ride or drive, but by how well they treat their horse," Scott explains. "Leslie definitely has a high regard for her horses and it turned out we had a lot in common." Their friendship and mutual respect grew, and eventually turned into their current engagement. Scott agreed to give clinics for Leslie in California and, when she later asked him to consider sending Shadow out West to her program, he agreed. "Training here in Connecticut is hard," Scott explains. "I don't have an indoor arena and our winters are long. I also work year-round."
He misses seeing Shadow regularly, but the upside is that the already good driving horse has become even better in Leslie's program, especially in dressage. Combined driving has divisions for singles horses, plus pairs and teams of four. Competing as a single requires special qualities, Leslie reports. "They need to be a self starter and be really bold and able to go out by themselves." A single also has to work harder without another horse or horses to share the load. An "opinionated, strong-minded" steed, Shadow fills that bill, Leslie reports. That's great for the marathon phase, and less so for dressage. "He came here thinking he was going to teach me how to drive him, but he has gotten a lot better." Counting dressage as her specialty, Leslie rides Shadow frequently and emphasizes conditioning him for the sport's unique physical demands. Her equine treadmill has helped strengthen his back and hindquarters, which helped shift is power source more to the hindquarters and less from the shoulder. "I believe in getting my horses really strong," Leslie says. "It's a strenuous sport, but I have never had a horse that's failed the vet box." Leslie's involvement has been a huge asset in our success," Scott states. That's especially true as it applies to the trickier tasks required in the relatively new Test 9 used in Advanced level dressage. "He works through his back more than he ever has, and that gives him more strength for everything." At 18, Shadow takes advantage of his age and experience. "In some ways he is in his prime because he understands his job very well," Scott notes. "He knows how to conserve his energy. He won't let up in a hazard, but in-between he'll drop his head like a cow pony and get some rest. Yes, he's a senior citizen in this rugged sport, but he's still going out there kicking some butt!" Scott and Shadow could go for another World Championships, which will be held this September in Portugal. "Of course, I want to," Scott says. But it's an expensive proposition in an already expensive sport. Preparing and competing abroad for previous championships have run between $40,000 and $50,000, not counting the cost of campaigning Stateside enough to earn a shot. Scott is undecided whether he and Shadow will go for it this year, even with the added appeal of potentially being on the team with Leslie.
Leslie is a lifelong horse person who grew up riding mostly Quarter Horses and competing on the hunter/jumper circuit. She first saw the driving disciplines in action at a State Fair show and decided to give it a whirl. That was 11 years ago with her Quarter Horse and she has since learned that the people in the sport are as appealing as its adrenaline rushes. "If you don't have some piece of equipment and somebody finds out, you'll have 10 offers!" She's also earned a permanent spot on the sport's national radar. In 2008, she and her Hackney Horse, Koopman's Lightning Rod, represented the U.S. at the FEI World Singles Championships in Jarantow, Poland. Leslie hopes to return to the World Championships this year. Her current star partner is Umnico, a Gelderlander owned by Fritz and Phyllis Grupe, the owners of the Shady Oaks venue in Lodi and hosts of the big September CDE. Fritz drove "Travis" to the national championship in 2009 and to reserve champion in 2010. To earn a World Championships shot, Leslie and Travis will spend a good stretch of time back East, with three Advanced competitions in Florida and one in North Carolina. The first is this month, Feb. 3-5. Travis will stay on the East Coast, in the care of a trusted colleague, while Leslie will fly home between competitions to tend to the other important parts of her busy life. Leslie has two children, Austin and Ashley, 11 and 13, and she also has a "real world" job. She's a California Highway Patrol officer and a paramedic who often crews on a helicopter that provides advanced life support services. She laughs at the notion that she leads a superhero's life, but admits that it is "a big endeavor" to earn a national title or make an international team from a West Coast base. Given that her equestrian sport of choice is purposely fraught with perilous obstacles, it's doubtful the geographic challenge will get in Leslie's way.
What Is Combined Driving? The sport's closest comparison is eventing because it involves three categories of competition: dressage, marathon and a cones course. All are meant to test the horse's training, responsiveness, fitness and endurance. The big difference, of course, is that the horse is pulling something, either a light "presentation" carriage used for dressage and the cones course, or a heavier, more rugged marathon vehicle, which Leslie Berndl likens to an off-road sports car. Driving the carriage, the person part of the equation relies on their rein, voice and whip aids, as their leg and seat aids are not part of the action. At the Advanced Level a combined driving event last three days and begins with dressage. "It's just like ridden dressage in that there are circles, figures and transitions, and the movements have to happen at certain letters," explains Leslie. At 40 by 100 meters, the dressage court is bigger than its 20 by 60-meter equivalent for ridden dressage. Advanced level uses FEI Test 9 and its difficulties start with four, 20-meter circles at the collected trot, a gait that is not required until the Intermediate level. The circles are joined by changes in direction, and must be executed with one hand, a tricky task only required at Advanced. This level's test is also the first to incorporate canter work. "That's unusual because, traditionally, driving horses were only taught to trot," Leslie explains. Fifteen-meter "deviations," like a sidepass or leg yield, are another of the level's distinct challenges. Like cross-country in eventing, the marathon on day-two is typically the most exciting phase to watch. It begins with Section A, travelling a prescribed distance at a prescribed pace, then goes to Section B, a timed one-kilometer track during which the horse must maintain a focused, working walk in order to avoid penalties. Sounds simple, but it isn't, Leslie assures. After an OK in the vet box, horse and driver enter Section E. This is also a timed distance test, but with significant obstacles or "hazards," typically eight at the Advanced level. Natural or manmade, these range from complex arrangements of gates that must be navigated in a certain order to water obstacles and hillside challenges. Contesters are on the clock between entering and emerging from each obstacle and the goal is to incur as few time penalties as possible. Every obstacle requires the horse to be both obedient and ambitious, to decelerate and turn on a dime in some points and gallop at others. There are pockets of intense combined driving activity in California, but it is relatively obscure compared to most english and western disciplines. Shady Oaks in Lodi is the one Advanced level combined driving event in California. A visit to its website, www.shadyoaksevents.com, and to www.rideonvideo.com, provides a good glimpse of combined driving's excitement and beauty, especially as staged at Shady Oaks' annual competition in September. For more information about the sport of combined driving, visit the American Driving Society at www.americandrivingsociety.org. The website includes a listing of regional driving clubs. California clubs include the Whipper Snappers in Ventura County, the Central Valley Harness Association and the Northern California Driving Club, of which Leslie is a member.
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