Raising Connections
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Raising Connections
Take the Reins of Tradition 04-27-2026
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Join Claire Lacey, President of My Lady's Manor Driving Club and Rachann, as they free wheel through the world of modern horse driving. To quote Claire “Anything you can do on horseback, you can do in a cart.” This episode drives into the world of functional carts, elegant carriages, and rugged wagons. They explore the world of carriage driving, where the driver and horse build a powerful partnership rooted in trust, communication, and connection.
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In my historical recollection, there are the ladies' cards and my ladies' manner. And for some reason, I have in my mind that writing is a more athletic sport than carting because that was a ladies' piece. And my ladies' manner almost reinforces that for me.
SPEAKER_00We do suffer a little from the stereotypical interpretation of our club name. So often we go by MLMDC instead.
SPEAKER_01Today's podcast is brought to you by Mariah Bellmanor Kennel, offering dog boarding, bathing, and daycare in an eco-friendly environment. Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto, it's really what we do. Our touch extends to the food without preservatives, quality and natural shampoos, inclusive boarding, and a green living environment. Sounds like I might want to check in. Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Bell Manor Kennel or Mariah Bellmanor Kennel.com. Enjoy your program. Today, as always, we have a fun and interesting guest, Claire Lacey from My Lady's Manor. Welcome. Good morning. How are you today? Doing well. You have an interesting career in the equine industry. I think there's not much that you haven't accomplished.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much most English disciplines I've had a go at, yes. And some Western trail riding. Uh, there's my heart. Okay, good. And I find that they're all interconnected. There are, you know, certain things that are commonalities, like keeping the horse between you and the ground. That's lovely. That's a good thing to have. And, you know, being balanced and communication. It's all about communication and partnership to me.
SPEAKER_01That communication comes in so many different ways. It comes through a horse's mouth, from hands to the mouth, from your seat to the legs. But if you're in a carriage, that's a whole different beast. What kind of communication?
SPEAKER_00It is amazing how much communication you can have through the reins. And the way that I describe it, and this is one of the hardest things for people when they're learning to ride, even, is contact. I describe contact as being like a cell phone signal that a horse can work with different amounts of contact just as we could work with different volumes on a cell phone call. Oh, that's a great analogy. But if the call gets dropped, it gets very frustrating for everybody and the information doesn't get passed in either direction.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense because if contact is too much, it's like someone screaming at you on the phone.
SPEAKER_00Yes, very much.
SPEAKER_01Ah, and if it's too little, you can't understand what they're saying and you misunderstand what they're saying and do the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and with the added complication driving, that your reins are passing through rings that are on the saddle that are called turrets, and those create their own noise on the rain. So you do need to make sure that you're being specific and communicating well.
SPEAKER_01All right, we've jumped right into communication. What is My Lady's Manor?
SPEAKER_00My Lady's Manor is an area in Baltimore County. It's a historic area of property that was deeded by Lord Baltimore to his wife. Our driving club, My Lady's Manor Driving Club, was founded in 1979 by Mrs. Edward Dukart and Mrs. Dean Benfield, I believe is her name. But it's been around for a while. And Mrs. Dukart had a shoulder bone farm up there near Moncton, and they would get together. So looking at the sort of family tree of driving and the history of driving post-war, there was sort of a resurgence in driving. Is that post-World War II? Yes. Because during that period of wartime, people were actually getting back to using whatever carts they had that were still usable and pieces of harness they could put together to augment, you know, any kind of gas rationing and for local transport. Makes sense. Once we got past World War II, people want to start having fun. And so a lot of people, if they had a carriage, they thought, well, let's get together and go for a drive somewhere. Or, you know, let's try a little competition of some kind. So in that post-war period, you saw a resurgence of driving. You had the Carriage Association of America was founded in 1960. You had the American Driving Society was founded in 1974, and that was born out of a desire to have some kind of comparable competitions. So they were really created to start off creating the rules for driving in competition. And then we had our little local club, My Lady's Manor, started in 1979.
SPEAKER_01Does My Lady's Manor have an actual physical location?
SPEAKER_00No. We are an American Driving Society recognized club. Generally, our members are in the area sort of central Maryland, up into the bottom part of Pennsylvania. And we try and have activities in all different kinds of areas within that, slightly outside that, to cover different types of driving, different needs that people have, and to make it sort of a little more geographically fair for everybody.
SPEAKER_01Driving, a lot of folks, and probably a lot of our listeners are thinking you hop in the car, you hop in the truck, you get in the ATV. This is a horse and carriage, a horse and wagon.
SPEAKER_00So this could be a horse and cart, which is two wheels, a horse and carriage, which is four wheels of sort of generally light construction, or a horse and wagon would be, you know, a heavier construction four-wheel vehicle, usually for agricultural or commercial purposes.
SPEAKER_01So those would be the four-wheel drive pickups of the carriage and cart wagon world?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Most of what we're driving are a little more like our family car or uh a little sporty.
SPEAKER_01I think of the sport car of the carriage world, the little two-wheel sulky.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And that's what the My Lady's Manor logo is.
SPEAKER_00Our logo is actually a tandem. Oh. Okay. So in carriage driving, we're gonna get drill down into a little detail. Okay. In carriage driving, historically you had town vehicles which were painted because you wanted to see and be seen, and you wanted people to know who you were. We have a thing here in the US where people are trying to be more English than the English. Aha, yes. So back in the 1800s, if you wanted to be more English than the English, you built yourself a house that was kind of like a castle. There we go. We were all watching the golden era on TV now, yes. Absolutely. And you would have fine horses, you would have racehorses, perhaps, you would have fine carriages that you would be seen in in public. And if you were in a country area, you would tend to have vehicles that were just varnished, that were not painted, because it doesn't show the dust as much, it doesn't show the stone chips. The roads were not what we're used to today. They were not asphalt. They were, you know, crushed stone, crushed oyster shells, things like that. You had your vehicles for going to town, your formal vehicle. We're gonna go to a party at so-and-so's house. We'll take the very nice four-wheel carriage. We're gonna go to the hunt races. Let's take our sporting vehicle, which could be a tandem, or it could be a shooting break, or a park drag, a private carriage. And with those, you have built-in grandstand, you're sitting up high, you can see what's going on. Oh my. So it's the SUV. It's bigger than the SUV. Okay. It's also the portable tailgate. Okay. You would have literally some of these vehicles have wonderful accessories built into them for entertaining. I love it. Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's sort of like the Cadillac. Escalate with all of the things. Exactly. I learned the other day they have a cooler in the middle of them.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And these would sometimes have an ice box in them. Love it. When vehicles started being replaced by the internal combustion engine, the coaching clubs were starting to form up in New York and Philadelphia and London also. Because there were people that wanted to preserve the vehicles and the skills. And the four-in-hand club is still in existence today in many of those places.
SPEAKER_01When I think of driving, I think of the words that are used because they're very specific words. You don't say go left, go right, but you communicate through the reins. In that communication, there's reins that go down the horse's back or the sides, but do they have a bit in their mouth as a riding horse would? How does this work?
SPEAKER_00So you will have a bit in your horse's mouth. It's generally a milder mouthpiece because the reins are so long. They're going to be at least double the length of your riding reins for driving a single horse. So that makes them heavier. And then to have any kind of contact, you're going to need to kind of hold on to them a little bit. Now we don't want to have a dead hold because again we don't want to be screaming at the horse, but we do want to have a positive connection. So we'll have a milder mouthpiece, but then the cheeks on the side of the bit, you'll often see they have multiple positions for the reins. So if I'm going to go somewhere that my horse might be a little excited or spicy, perhaps a parade, I might drop the rein down a slot so that I have just a little more control if needed. I can adapt what I'm doing. I can also use my voice in driving. Even when we do things like driven dressage, I can give the horse a voice aid, which is really nice.
SPEAKER_01Driven dressage? Okay, we have to back up. Before we go to driven dressage, we gotta get everybody a picture. What you're talking about are these sporty-looking carts. And what TV program might we see these on?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a good question because you'll tend to see more of the historic type vehicles on TV programs. Bridgerton comes to mind, there's some wonderful carriages on that. You also see some pretty good carriage stuff on the Gilded Age, but those are generally period pieces. In terms of modern carriage driving, you'd actually have to sort of look into the sporting world. And we had the sport of combined driving, it was another big branch on the family tree, that came about when the Duke of Edinburgh was turning 50 and he had injured his wrist, I believe, playing polo, and the palace was concerned about his safety if he continued to do that. So being an active guy and an engineer from his naval background, he took a look at the carriages that were sitting around in the Royal Mews, and he thought it would be a good idea to come up with something like that, but sturdier that he could do something similar to three-day eventing. To me, three-day eventing means jumping. Right. So instead of jumping, you still have you have to do a dressage test, which most eventists tolerate because that's important these days. You do obstacles. Okay. Okay, which are fixed. And they will be labeled A through E or D, depending on what level you're doing. And they're labeled directionally, that you have to go through the opening a certain direction.
SPEAKER_01So very much like rally for dogs.
SPEAKER_00Yes. But it's up to you how you get from A to B. And if your fastest route to get to C is to go backwards through A, once you've been through A, it's no longer considered live. Oh, this would be fun to watch. It's a huge amount of fun to watch, and we're fortunate in Maryland that we have the Elk Creek combined driving event coming up at the start of June up at Fair Hill.
SPEAKER_01This almost sounds like very precision driving with limited rules.
SPEAKER_00Somewhat, yes. I mean the rules exist to try and make it fair and to make sure that we're being kind to our horses. Oh, absolutely. You know, we have to have that. But yes, it is precision driving. There's an awful lot of feel involved when you're going at that stage as you go into the upper levels. You can canter through these obstacles with your carriage. That's some speed. That's some speed, and the carriage is especially designed. They'll have disc brakes and they'll have airbag suspension and they'll have fifth wheel with a delayed steering component so the horse can turn before the wheels turn. There's a lot to it, and it's really interesting to watch. And if you go up to Fair Hill, you get to see people go from obstacle to obstacle, and they'll have to pace themselves. There's also almost like an optimum time aspect to it, that we're not just going hell for leather the whole time.
SPEAKER_01So in my mind, when you're describing this, and I'm thinking, is it dogs going through abilities, which is where agility and dogs came from, was from the equine world and eventing, or is it the derby where the cars are going hither and yon? But it's not quite either.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of in between, yes. Because you'll have your sections that are timed, and then you'll go between cones entering the area that the obstacle is in, and the clock is running when you're doing that.
SPEAKER_01And the fact that we can go watch this, we can be spectators at that point. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00It's a great day out. You can take it at your own pace, you can park in various areas up there, and you can really see what people are doing. And another way to participate is of course volunteering. Absolutely. We're always looking for people to score and help with that, and they're always really good about providing training. I love that.
SPEAKER_01The other image that came in my mind when I think of a sport vehicle, a sport cart behind a horse, I think of harness racing. And that's a cousin, but it's not really carting, or is it?
SPEAKER_00It's still driving. It is slightly different. The harness is slightly different. It is really set up to empower the horse in having as long a stride as possible, because a long stride is going to cover more ground in the same number of strides than a shorter stride would.
SPEAKER_01So they're all related, they're all very different disciplines, and dressage is the ballet of the horse world. And horses perform this action with a cart behind them.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And it's actually the tests are written in a similar style to a ridden dressage test, and they're scored in a similar way. The dressage arena is much bigger. Okay. They can take a little longer. But we're looking for the same progression through the tests. You'll start off with a walk trot test that's fairly straightforward. They'll progress through that there will be cantering in some tests, there will be serpentines, there will be driving with the reins in one hand. Is that a thing? That's a thing, yes.
SPEAKER_01When I watch Yellowstone, they're driving with reins in two hands. Yes. So do you lace them through your fingers and control that way?
SPEAKER_00Well, it kind of goes back historically to the coaching world again, where you would want to have the reins in one hand so that you can make adjustments with your right hand. The reins will be in your left hand, and you would also be able to use the whip for a communication aid in the right hand without affecting the reins.
SPEAKER_01You know, the stagecoach drivers, I see that in the movies. Single hand driving. Yes. Now that's TV.
SPEAKER_00That's TV, and it's not whip crack away. It's the whip aid is a lot more subtle. I love to do exercises with folks where we set up empty soup cans on a picnic table. And you know, can you touch it with the end of your lash? Can you knock it over with the end of your lash? Control. Control precision. Again, you want the horse to know this is a communication. I'm asking you to move off that shoulder.
SPEAKER_01It's not a punishment.
SPEAKER_00It's absolutely not a punishment.
SPEAKER_01It's a communication. Yeah. I love that. Because I know when I walk with folks, there's times I tap them on the shoulder and they look at me and they're like, oh, this left. Yes. I get it now. Okay. I hadn't thought about the whip quite that way.
SPEAKER_00And we have the same thing with blinders on a driving bridle. You know, a lot of people are like, oh, that's so the horse doesn't see what's behind him and he's not getting scared. The horse is very aware that there's stuff behind him. He hears it, he feels it through the shafts. What they really do is they help the horse focus on the path forward. So if I were walking across a field, I might take a pretty random path. But if I was walking on something between wooded trees, it would be clearer where the path was if I had objects on either side. So that's what the blinder does. It also creates that the horse gives up a little autonomy, that they're more willing to listen to direction from the driver. If I were to blindfold you and lead you around, initially you'd be pretty hesitant, but eventually you'd figure out you could trust me, and I could say, okay, two steps left, three steps forward, step over something.
SPEAKER_01And that comes back to that relationship and the communication.
SPEAKER_00It's all about communication, trust, partnership.
SPEAKER_01That's what makes driving or working with equines so special. And why equines can be utilized in so many different ways is the trust in the relationship. If you're seated on a horse, that's a very different communication than if you're in a cart. Dragging something behind a horse is something else.
SPEAKER_00And it's not something that's natural to them. You're in their blind spot, and horses, as many people know, is considered prey animals. Absolutely. So there's a very definite small step process that you go through in training a horse to drive and seeing if it is willing to tolerate that. Because not all horses could. Not all horses are good with that. Physically, most horses actually find it pretty easy. And the carts and carriages are not that heavy at all. But they do have to have that trust in you. So we work on what I call building the trust fund. You set your horse up for success, and every time the horse has a positive experience, you're putting a quarter in your piggy bank. I like that. And then if you have a challenge, let's say, you know, suddenly out of nowhere there's a plastic bag that flies across, that might be a dollar fifty withdrawal. But if you have enough funds in your trust fund, your horse is still gonna trust you at the end of the day, and the horse is also gonna know how it's supposed to react.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of those terrifying plastic bags, when they come blowing across the field, if you're seated on a horse, you have some level of control and the concern is coming off. Yes. If you're in a carriage, you're not seated on the horse, and therefore you don't come off.
SPEAKER_00Is there a risk? There is a risk. Driving is at least as much fun as riding, but it can be less forgiving. Because if you fall off a horse, the horse is just a horse. It can choose to stand and graze there and look at you, or it can just take off and run itself out of steam. But with a cart behind it, if you come off a cart and that horse is still attached to a cart, the horse does not take account of the cart behind it widthwise. So they can end up jamming up against fence posts or trees, bushes, and it can cause a lot of damage, it can cause injury, and it can also mean that that horse will never drive again. Oh my. Because your damage that trust fund is negative, negative, negative, and you don't have any chance to move forward. So we really try hard to make sure that the horses are not put in a position where that's likely to occur. So one of the things for people transitioning from riding to driving is riding, you might finish your ride back at the trailer, you put your halter around your horse's neck, and you take your bridle off. Yes. You absolutely don't ever want to do that with a horse still hooked to a cart. Why? Because if that horse has a mishap in getting the halter on or it breaks the halter, you then have a horse that's loose with a cart attached. Chasing it. Chasing it. And that has happened, and up at Fair Hill, that has happened in the past. So again, we really try and avoid those situations.
SPEAKER_01Are there any safety items that we need to think of if we're going to drive in a carriage?
SPEAKER_00Yes. I would say that it's highly recommended to wear a helmet no matter what type of driving you're doing. Not only do you have the potential for being ejected from a vehicle, but you also have the potential that that vehicle might land on you. So it's a good idea to wear a helmet. In combined driving, it's also required that you wear a body protector for similar reasons, and it can't be an airbag protector because it won't inflate fast enough. Things can happen very, very quickly. So those are big safety things for sure.
SPEAKER_01I need you to break a myth for me. You blew me away when you talked about the three-day eventing in carriages and carts. In my historical recollection, there are the ladies' cart and my ladies' manner. And for some reason, I have in my mind that riding is a more athletic sport than carting because that was a ladies' piece. And my ladies' manner almost reinforces that for me.
SPEAKER_00We do suffer a little from the stereotypical interpretation of our club name. So often we go by MLMDC instead. Okay. And that's still the same place. Yes, people do think that it's Downton Abbey, it's the high flutin lifestyle. And we do have a branch of driving called pleasure driving, which is also competitive, that is judging your turnout, how shiny your brass is on your harness. Do you have a color palette that's complementary to your horse that coordinates with your vehicle upholstery? Is your hat appropriate? Do you have the appropriate items in your spares kit? Because that's a required piece of equipment. You are required to wear brown gloves because the dye doesn't get on your hands. You are required to use an apron. We're not talking about an over-the-head cooking apron, but it ties around the waist. And originally it would keep the oils from the rains from soiling your clothing. So in the pleasure driving world, the big laugh that we all have about it is most of us are actually shopping at thrift stores for our carriage driving outfits. Oh my. Because then you don't have to care about if it gets messed up and you can have more outfits. Aha! And so that's what we do with that. But that type of competition, you know, it exists and it's looking at your precision skills. There'll be tests of reinsmanship where you are driving perhaps with one hand and you are piloting your horse through a series of cones.
SPEAKER_01Which would be a town driving situation. Yes. Interesting. Oftentimes people reach an age where they have an event in their lives where they are no longer able or comfortable riding horseback. And they think, maybe I'll get involved in carting or carriage work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's an absolutely great idea. I often tell people driving is an alternate universe. Just about everything that you do riding-wise, there is a driving version. That seems wild to me. Yeah. I mean, there's endurance driving with distance, there's the combined driving that we talked about, there's the dressage, there's combined tests in driving. We're actually having one of those in August at the Harford County Equestrian Center. There's a driving derby, and that's a combination of cones which have balls on the top that if you knock them off, you get a penalty, and fixed obstacles, like the marathon type obstacles on the combined driving. And the whole round is timed. And that's happening on the Saturday in in August up at Harford Equestrian Center.
SPEAKER_01This is a live and well community. Yes, it is. Active community. Yes. Okay, I have to ask this. How big are the trailers that you use? Because I'm thinking you have horses and in my mind I'm seeing these giant, giant horses loading on, the draft horses loading on with big carts in a trailer to get your horse vehicle somewhere. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How does this work? Well, yeah, if you're doing a six-horse hitch, you're gonna need a tractor trailer for your horses and probably another one for your wagon and all the harness. But the largest demographic of drivers these days is actually people driving very small equines, otherwise known as miniature horses. Really? Yes. And it is possible with a regular two-horse trailer to get a little cart, two-wheel cart, and a mini in your two-horse trailer. So you can start out that way. Moving beyond that, a lot of people go to something like a small stock trailer that you can get a cart or carriage in the front part and then have the horse behind that. You can also, it's a pain, but you can usually get a cart or a carriage in the back of a pickup truck. If you're taking a pair vehicle, you might do that. When you start having to get carts and carriages up in higher spots, or you're using a vehicle for a pair of animals, then you might start using an electric winch to help with that. Okay, so there's ways to do this. There's lots of ways. And a great way to see that is to come to our day in the park event and you get to inspect everybody's turnouts and see how they do things.
SPEAKER_01I love that. This is a very welcoming community. It is. Come see, come touch, be a spectator. Yes, absolutely. Oftentimes I think our listeners might forget that we can watch and enjoy horse sports much the way we enjoy other athletic events.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And it's a great shame because it's a fun time to get out in the fresh air, out in the countryside, and see something different. If we go to an event and we don't know what to do, do we just sit there awkwardly? You can. Or you can bring a picnic, or you can say hi to somebody and ask them, you know, can you tell me about your carriage or your horse or what kind of event this is? Most people are kind of like me, that they have so much of this stuff they want to share, it just falls out. But that's good. We need to know that we can ask questions. Yes.
SPEAKER_01But we'll probably also need to know that there's a time you've got to get business going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you see somebody that's actually driving and they have a number on their vehicle, the chances are they're competing and they might be getting ready to warm up. That might not be the best time to talk to them. But there's nearly always somebody around because as drivers, we usually need somebody to help us. Ah, yes. Typically, we want somebody that's going to stand at the animal's head while we're finishing harnessing it and putting it to the vehicle and when we're getting in and getting everything situated. So, you know, we tend to rely on each other a lot to help. And because of that, we have a really good community.
SPEAKER_01The first time I ever saw My Lady's Manor was in at the Lisbon Christmas Parade. Yeah. And that we're not talking Spain, we're talking Maryland. Yes. And the My Lady's Manor was dressed in a clothing that was beautifully outfitted, coming through town in lovely carriages. Is that an event that they routinely do?
SPEAKER_00It is. It's actually become a pretty firm favorite with our club members. And even this past year when we couldn't have horses because of the EHV situation, we actually had two wooden horses that one of our former club members who since passed away had made. And we we put Santa's sleigh, a real sleigh, on the trailer with the two horses. They were a little wooden in their neck structure, you know, didn't bend very well. But they were very well behaved. They were very well behaved. And we brought a touch of hopefully old time charm with the big lantern and the coachman.
SPEAKER_01It goes to the spirit of get out there and have some fun. Yes. This is not a hobby. This is a lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00It's a lifestyle, and it's also something that I think in this day and age, there's something that a lot of people are missing. And it is a connection to the past, to their family history, to their places. In this area of Maryland, all of these older towns are all where you could get to in a day with horses and carriages. Absolutely. We forget that. We forget that. I used to docent over at the carriage collection that used to be at Morgan Park. And it was very interesting how many people came in and had memories of driving horses with their grandparents. I believe that. There's a thread in this, and we have so many of our buildings were literally built with horsepower.
SPEAKER_01One horsepower at a time.
SPEAKER_00One horsepower at a time, one team of horses at a time. We see all these modern hauling vehicles going down the highway. There were horse-drawn equivalents of moving vans, coal vehicles, anything you needed, ice trucks, fire engines. We have a wonderful fire museum in Maryland on York Road, which I believe has the largest collection of horse-drawn fire equipment in the country. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Maryland has such a rich equine history. Yes. And bringing forward the towns being so close together and the structure that was built around equines, are we still allowed to drive equines on those public roads? Yes, you are.
SPEAKER_00Now you are required to have a slow-moving vehicle triangle that has to be three feet or higher above the ground. It's wise to have some kind of moving or flashing device. You know, you can't take them on the highway, like I-70, the interstates, but you can certainly take them on other roads. But you really have to look at is it safe? Same thing with riding. Yeah. Be aware. But the quieter country roads, yeah, people do still drive on those summon neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_01And then when you get to an event, we've mentioned Fair Hill, we've mentioned some of the driving competitions, you've talked about the size of the arenas. I would think a trail for a riding horse could potentially be narrower than a trail for a carriage. Yes.
SPEAKER_00How does that work? That is one of our biggest challenges is finding places that are wide enough to drive. And generally, if something will take an ATV, it'll take some of the smaller carriages and be fine. But unfortunately, some of the access is limited, things like the NCR trail. Perfect. 2% gradient, nice and even surface, but there are restrictive devices to stop ATVs, which unfortunately stop carriages. I hadn't considered that. Yeah. Same with, you know, the CNO tow path over by the Potomac. Because of the wheels. Because of the wheels. You know, we just can't get through these devices. So one of the things that we do struggle with and work on is trying to find places to drive and be included because driving is naturally the adaptive form of equestrianism, you know. Absolutely. I hadn't considered it that way. Yeah. Going back to what you were saying earlier, you know, when you have issues that you can't ride anymore, you can drive forever. And the other nice thing is you can take people with you. They might not be horse people.
SPEAKER_01And share the experience.
SPEAKER_00And you can share the experience and you can see the world around you at a pace that our ancestors would have seen it.
SPEAKER_01And that makes the world change. Yeah. If we want to come to an event or find out how to become a driver, a carriage driver, where do we find you?
SPEAKER_00You can find us online. Our website is mlmdc.org. And on that website we have our calendar for the whole year. We have things about clinics and events that are coming up. We have some of our club history, membership opportunities. And we also have on that calendar what I mentioned earlier the day in the park events that are open to the public. So you don't have to be a member. If you're just curious about driving, come to that event. We always have a great potluck lunch because we like to uphold the tailgating tradition. Absolutely. But very friendly folks. Everybody's got stories to tell, and you get to enjoy seeing the horses and partaking in those. So we do that event three times a year. And in conjunction with that, we're doing a competition clinic. We try and have a special event run in conjunction with it. So that's gonna have all you needed to know. What do I need to have? What do I need to be able to do? How do I enter for combined driving, for pleasure driving? And we're also gonna look at some of the volunteer opportunities so people can be finding out what the possibilities are.
SPEAKER_01All kinds of things. You can come watch, you can come participate, you can touch, feel, learn, be a part of a community. Bringing the world full circle from chariot racing to town transportation to settling the west of the United States. Yeah. All the stories and the modern uses and the modern pleasure. Come see the events. Thank you for being part of our community today. You're very welcome. Thank you for having us. I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. Join me again next week. We'll make some more connections.
SPEAKER_00This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Rashan Mayer, coordinated by Beverly McElroy, and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.