British Young Drivers

February 2023 training

Report by Phoebe Matthews

21 March 2023

As always, the event was very well organised by Jo Alvis and Mary Jane Campbell. We are extremely grateful to have them at the helm of the British young drivers.

It was a fantastic weekend with a total of sixteen young drivers coming together! There were two brilliant trainers, Frank Campbell and Tara Wilkinson, who ran amazing lessons throughout the two days covering all three phases of driving competition..

Everybody had two lessons each day. For me, on the first day, it was dressage in the morning and cones in the afternoon.

I had my lessons with Tara, who was a fantastic instructor and helped me get out of old habits that I have unfortunately developed. I am driving a young horse and this was incredibly helpful. She also helped getting my horse going more forwards and going better overall.

After all the lessons were complete, everyone helped to build the cones course. The younger drivers had a smaller course but still in the same arena and the trainers talked through the course with the drivers.

The course was definitely a lot tighter for me than it appeared when walking it, it might be because of the bigger horse! There were quite a few balls on the ground, although one time the ball managed to stay perched on the rim of the cone!

Saturday evening was rather eventful! We had fish and chips for dinner, and everyone came together to eat in the seating area in the indoor arena. It was amazing to see everyone getting involved and socialising. There are a few young drivers who are new to the scene and it was great to see them enjoying themselves!

Then came the fun, the drivers became the horses! One person was blindfolded while the other was steering with a pair of reins, they then had to complete an obstacle course as fast as they could!

It was mayhem. There was a bit of driver-horse communication between Tara and Frank, when Tara forgot Frank was blindfolded and forgot to tell him to stop. You can probably see where this goes. Frank walked straight into the side of the arena which ended up with him sitting out from the rest of the activities.

The next morning was another dressage lesson. I worked on the same things with Tara, and she has definitely taught me things I will continue to use when I’m driving.

Like the cones, it was a joint effort to build the obstacles and then all of the drivers were set off to learn the course. They were joint lessons with both Frank and Tara’s lessons taking turns to drive the obstacles.

It was really nice to watch all the other drivers drive their obstacles and progress so much! Overall, it was a brilliant weekend, with drivers of all ages and abilities coming together and making fantastic memories.

Thank you to everyone who came, and to Jo and Mary Jane for organising the event. Also massive thanks to Tara and Frank for their brilliant training and to everyone who helped!

Can’t wait until the next BYD training!

Phoebe Matthews

More pictures and video clips: