On both sides of the Atlantic, exclusive clubs of horsey types gather for days at a time, in events that are more social than riding: A carriage ride is basically a rolling party, the driver, however, must have a special gift for communing with horses, while the team of steeds must match like bookends in looks and temperament. Most of the events are organized by invitation only. To be a member of a driving club, you have to be a master whip, which entails investing not only in the carriage, the horses, driving lessons and continuing clinics, stable personnel and accoutrements, but also in a way of life. Donald Rosato, a former Philadelphia physician, employs grooms who wear livery and sound the hunting horn when he takes off in his Holland & Holland roof-seat brake carriage. Rocca exercises his horses four or five mornings a week. “They have to be conditioned, just as athletes do,” he notes.
The public sees the events that involve parading on racetracks, across polo fields or through town squares. For race-day parades, carriage drivers and passengers dress to the nines, men in top hats and women in the kind of millinery Judy Garland wore in Easter Parade, downing champagne and waving to beer-drinking throngs of tailgaters wearing flip-flops. Weymouth requires that his guests look contemporary but elegant when they parade on the steeplechase track. “To keep the sport going, we try to keep up the traditions of driving,” he says.
On long country drives, riders wear sportier hats and let their hair down a bit more as the day wears on and Bloody Marys flow. These private drives are commonly held on estates. Last year, during the Strawberry Hill event, Harrison Tyler, a descendant of President John Tyler, hopped aboard the carriage of Rolf and Carol Van Schaik of Cavendish, Vt. They led the procession through the Fort Pocahontas Plantation, a Tyler family estate along the James River in Virginia. The day ended as driving days always do, hosing down sweaty horses and scrubbing every single piece of harness, with minutes to spare before the evening party began.
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