If you ever wanted to learn tips and secrets of carriage driving from multiple-time World Driving Championship winner Boyd Exell, you would not be alone.
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The 2019 Boyd Exell Training Clinic was held for four days in Bega and was due to wrap up on Sunday, January 6.
It was the second time the clinic was held and those interested in learning from the master driver came from across Australia and even New Zealand, with the interest being too much for the available spaces.
“When we advertised the event it was booked out in two days!” one of the clinic’s organisers Byron McIntyre said.
“But you just can’t do anything about that.”
READ MORE: Exell claims third gold at world games
Mr Exell has a long list of achievements, including being crowned four-in-hand world champion four times and winning the Federation of Equine International World Cup Driving Championship seven times.
It is quite an achievement for a man that grew up in Bega.
“I just loved horses, so after a few days with carriage horses I didn’t even notice the carriage I just enjoyed the horses,” Mr Exell said.
It was former Bega local and current member of the Southern Horse Driving Trials Club Max Pearce who started the future champion in carriage driving after Mr Exell’s mother brought her son to his stables.
“He wanted to come over every day after school. He didn’t miss a day from when he was about eight until he was 21,” he said.
At the clinic in Bega, drivers trained in the different combinations of singles, pairs and four-in-hands while Mr Exell gave advice to them and a group on the ground, occasionally leaping up into a carriage to take the reins and drive around the course.
He was asked what he wanted people to learn from the clinic.
“As long as they achieve something, a lesson they want to achieve,” he said.
“If they achieve too many things then they can’t take it in, so one thing is enough.”
Mr Pearce said the lessons being taught on the day were were mainly about getting the horses to be comfortable in pulling a carriage, such as making sure the drivers had the right amount of control, the horses’ mouth pieces were not uncomfortable in their mouths, and the horses were not imbalanced with their carriages.
“With carriage riding the reins are several metres long so you need to be able to have good hand control to be able to keep balanced,” he said.
Mr Pearce said a lot of people with medical issues take up carriage driving, as they do not have to sit on horses’ backs.
“It’s very family orientated too,” Mr McIntyre said.
“My kids come with me, my wife drives; that’s why I like it.”
Mr McIntyre, who said he is good friends with Mr Exell, said the lessons that the champion teaches can make a huge difference in your driving.
“The knowledge that Boyd parts with is exceptional,” he said.
“It’s just the stuff that he sees that we don’t is phenomenal.”
Clinics on carriage driving are run all over Australia, but Mr Exell teaches at the one in Bega and one in Tamworth.