Questions first. Will you be driving alone most of the time, or do you have someone who will be with you on your drives? Reason for this is to figure if you need to add weights to the vehicle. The vehicle you are showing us, does better carrying weight over the rear axle for braking, keeping the wheels down in turns and travel. If you always carry a rear passenger when driving, you have the weight on the axle. If you drive alone, there is no weight back there to help. If you have no 2nd person, you add dead weight back there, just have it in place all the time, ready when you need it. Also good to help condition horse to fitness needed for pulling two people on course! If you have part-time help, I would still leave the weight on the vehicle, good to “stress” the horse sometimes, with overweighting the vehicle during a drive.
Weight can be bolted to the underside of back step, out of your way, but always ready to go. Easily removed when you compete. I would suggest using about 200 pounds, weight of a fair size passenger, not going to kill off your horse to pull it, even if you have a passenger with you sometimes. We use plate steel, stacked, in 50# pieces so they are manageable to put on. Got the plate at a junkyard, had a welding shop put the holes in, cut and align the pieces for bolts. I never had good luck with buckets of sand, bags of dirt, etc. as cheap weight on the back end, tied in place. Didn’t stay in place during drives, was mostly too high above the axles when you need weight down low to prevent tipping.
The seat behind is always nice, but will you really be using it much? Does keep the Groom further back, so they have to reach, lean, to get good grips on the bars they hold onto. Nice place to step UP on for water crossings, keep their boots dry!
Were the back springs just replaced with new springs of the same style? Changed to a total new type spring or shock system? For CDE, you want a vehicle sprung rather hard, no cushy ride. Gives you crisp turns, groom CAN move it sideways if needed. Cushy springs just sink under the weight, no rebound for moving sideways off a post. Of COURSE better driving will keep you OFF any posts, so Groom just is along for the ride anyway!
Is this the vehicle your Trainer hitched your horse to, that you say she did well in? Because it is not a cart. It is a 4-wheeled carriage. Carts ALWAYS have ONLY two wheels, and it will greatly confuse other Driving folks if you call it a cart in discussions.
You will want to learn about brakes, how to service them, adjust them, bleed them, and about how to apply them when driving. Brakes are an AID, so they WILL NOT stop the carriage on a dime, nor halt your horse when you put brakes on! If you hit them hard, that back end WILL jack-knife on you, swinging to one side or the other. Could throw your horse off stride or sideways!! Learn to use your brakes LIGHTLY, just to HELP the horse. You don’t have front brakes, so only one pedal to worry about.
Depending on the color stain you use on wood, a red pinstripe can look very nice or not even show up. Width of the striping can be wider, so it is more visible, two widths of striping or even another color than red. Dark horse, dark vehicle, is not going to let your narrow red pinstripe be visible from any distance. Could be just a dark shape out in the Dressage field, with your clothing the only spot of color. Black is a nice color, easy to keep looking nice with touchups, but it needs to be VERY clean when you go out. Like a black car, EVERY thread, bit of dust, shows up plainly. I would not recommend red spokes, unless this is for Marathon only. Marathon vehicles are not traditional to begin with, so almost any color mix is fine, and some quite exotic wheel color combinations, patterns, are seen on popular vehicle makes. Red piped seats, could limit your clothing choices to things that go with red. Might not make a happy outline going around your body when seated, like framing you. You could chalk the present seat edges, take a couple seated photos, see if you like it. You just want to avoid having too many colors and contrasts, when seated on the vehicle. No more than 3 colors between seat, and your clothing, hat, laprobe. Too busy is distracting, turns into a mixed color blur from a distance, not a sharp, tailored appearance with one bright spot of attractive contrast in hat or scarf, blouse.
Here are some photos of well turned out drivers from a bit of distance. Look at them to see what you notice first, how much (if any) of the little things can be seen by the Judge way OVER THERE. Thank you Metamora Photos, for such an extensive collection of photos to view! You can wander the other pages of photos, see what is out competing in clothing, vehicle colors, contrast or blending with the equine they drive. I have tried doing the matchy-matchy stuff, didn’t work for me, nor did choosing “my own” paint scheme to drive in Carriage shows. Ended up repainting, so a pricy mistake. It was a long while ago, when Standing Presentation was MUCH more picky, subjective, than what is done now.
http://www.metamoraphoto.com/gallery/thumbnails-196-page-11.html
Traditionally on more formal use vehicles, colored wheels are seen on vehicles with same colored bodies. Sporting type vehicles traditionally have dark colored bodies with pinstriped bright color wheels AND bright, matching color undercarriage. The vehicle in this photo IS pinstriped, but not very visible from a distance. Vehicle is done as Sporting Vehicle in color choices, with the louver sides, it classed as a Dogcart.
http://www.metamoraphoto.com/gallery/displayimage-196-9837.html#top_display_media
We have owned the carriage for 10 years now and we couldnt be happier with it! Jack and Jan (who sell the carriages out of driving essentials) couldnt be more helpful! We had some small issues with the carriage when we set it up for a pair and they delt with everything quicky and did not charge us anything extra. Great customer service!! Love them!
