Des anyone do combined driving in GA? I would love to watch it and maybe volunteer at some events.
A couple of years ago there was an annual event put on by some driving folks. It was for several years at the Olympic Horse Park.
Then two years ago it was moved to a private farm south west of Atlanta. It ran for a couple of years and then was cancelled due to low entries (bad economy and 4 dollar a gallon fuel). I haven;t heard much about it lately.
These folks excelled at helping newbies with mentors. Class act.
You might check with the American Driving Society, ADS, for clubs in GA. This link will show you the Regional Director, who will have names and numbers to contact.
http://www.americandrivingsociety.org/regn_southeast.asp
Checking at the ADS home site, you can get on the Calendar and see if there are activities in GA or nearby states that you could attend. Everyone LOVES a volunteer, so stand up and make your self known!
http://www.americandrivingsociety.org/index.asp
The Carriage Association of America is the other national driving group, though their focus is more historic and vehicle oriented. The GA folks were quite active in the CAA, probably still are.
I am sure if you contact them, they will be able to give you Club contact information to get going with the Driving folks in GA.
I’m not really “in the know” for when CDEs are happening and where…
But i do know there is quite a bit of activity and driving in general in the Aiken SC area if you’re closer to that side of GA. There is an Aiken Driving Club if you google it that has several different events a year and has the local to aiken CDEs on there.
My instructor is Muffy Seaton over in the aiken area, she’s very well known in the CDE circles, you could drop her an email and ask if she knows of something more local to you or who to contact that might need volunteers. Her website is muffyseaton.com
I’m REALLY hoping to get more involved in the CDEs next year, but i’ll probably be sticking with the aiken area as that is closest to me.
[QUOTE=Equibrit;5103466]
Tom Hilgenberg; http://www.greatoaksmorgans.com/[/QUOTE]
Thank you Equibrit, I had a serious case of CRS and just didn;t want to take the time to look it up.
Nice gentleman–he was rather ill last time I was there. I hope he is doing okay.
Beautiful farm built on an old cotton planation on the side of a ridge. The house sat at the top of the ridge and then pastures and barn were on the next terrace down. The course was on the old terraced cottom fields. Beautiful place.
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[QUOTE=Equibrit;5103466]
Tom Hilgenberg; http://www.greatoaksmorgans.com/[/QUOTE]
I was at Tom’s place this summer, which is all set up for CDEs -with 200 acres and a landing field for driving fast and he was a wonderful driver and medalist but he as cartfall said, he is sick. His wonderful family is keeping up the farm, horses and we had a ride and drive there this summer through our FUNDRS group. But his family doesn’t drive like Tom did, they mostly ride. The CDE below will be at their place and it is absolutely gorgeous!
There is a GA Carriage Driving Society. Which, frankly could use new members and people to sign up to carry through with events. I think if all of us in GA joined, signed up for the CDE -maybe we could get that CDE really going again. I think they would really appreciate anyone’s membership and help! Having visited their website again, I am going to commit myself to joining and signing up as soon as it opens.
http://www.gacarriagedriving.com/
http://www.gacarriagedriving.com/events.html
The middle TN carriage driving society is VERY active and tons of fun. That is going to be the best bet for finding activities other than SC/NC. For some of us, TN is just over the boarder.
http://www.midtenncarriageclub.org/
The www.fundrs.com is great. We have had various clinics (course design, coachmen’s driving, obstacle) over the past three years and many, many drives/rides. We don’t have a formal structure, but we do have drives quite often. But we do non-competitive events only.
If you have a crossbred or a draft pony, the GA draft horse association always has a pleasure driving class at their shows. The big one is at Perry. It is a lot of fun.
If you have time to volunteer, another outlet is:
http://www.drivingmagicinc.org
