View from the Back Seat

Driving Thursday

If you do a Google image search on “combined driving marathon navigator,” you will see extra personnel being hauled around, some times standing, sometimes hanging halfway off the back of the cart.

Just as essential to these partnerships are the grooms or navigators, those second or third persons on the carriage who, though they never touch the reins or whip, provide brains and support as well as balance and ballast. ADS: Combined Driving

These are the folks who use their bodyweight to stabilize the carriage, plus, if the person is big enough, to shimmy the back end of the carriage around a tight spot. They also help the drivers remember which way to the C gate when galloping at speed through the fifth obstacle of the day.

In an ideal world, Greg would have a big burly dude, with a deft touch, and an encyclopedic knowledge of driving strategy. Instead, he gets 150 pounds of driving ignorance with a known propensity for confusing left and right.

That would be me.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott