Training

Carriage Driving training is NOT Saddlechariot training. They share a number of elements, but they are not the same. If you drive a Carriage like a Saddlechariot you will be in serious trouble. I have only driven two traditional vehicles, a four wheeler with Danny Kendle and the Household Cavalry leaders. Danny rapidly took the reins back when he could see I hadn't a clue what to do, though I had no problem an hour later, driving Eusi, the nearside leader, in a Saddlechariot.

My second traditional driving experience was driving an exercise vehicle with a coloured cob at Appleby Fair, in the main street, surrounded by lunatic horsemen and cars, vans and lorries. Standing up works on a Saddlechariot, but not on an exercise vehicle, I hated the feel of reins through terrets, and getting off was just plain dangerous. I did it, and led the animal back.

I drove the Saddlechariot every day of the Appleby Fair, relaxed and enjoying myself because I could get off when I wanted, get the vehicle off, and stand up when I wanted.

Conversely if you drive a saddlechariot like a carriage, you will sit down, when you should stand, and stay on when you should get off. The Saddlechariot has to be ridden cross country exactly as you would ride a motorbike or ski across rough ground, standing, taking the bumps through the legs, actually just like riding X country.

The unique feature of the Saddlechariot, the IEIVR, means that getting off and removing the vehicle should be the norm, and a routine precautionary measure, like shortening the reins when you hear a fire engine screaming towards you in a narrow lane. Getting off and removing the vehicle is slightly more effort than shortening the reins, but an awful lot safer.

To use the Saddlechariot to the full Xcountry look at it as an Organic All Terrain Vehicle,
getting off, and getting the vehicle off, is what opens up areas where people would think long and heard about riding, and wouldn't dream of driving.

I have learned an enormous amount from Gary Witheford and Chris Cook, both of whom I would recommend, but there are thousands of trainers I have never met and never heard of.

If it works for you and your pony, and you both feel calm and confident in strange surroundings, I would say the training has worked.