Garden State Combined Driving Event brought two national championships to Horse Park of New Jersey

It was a rematch of an encounter we’ve seen many times in four-in-hand driving competition: Chester Weber vs. Jimmy Fairclough.

Chester, who could have gone to events closer to his Ocala, Fla., home rather than the Garden State Combined Driving Event at the Horse Park of New Jersey last weekend, made the choice to come north because it was the 2021 national championship. He had won the title 17 times previously and was going for number 18.

Jimmy, Chester’s teammate on the historic gold medal world championships squad in 2018, also was Chester’s first trainer. Chester attended Blair Academy in Blairstown, near Jimmy’s Sussex County home, where he got involved with what would become “something about which I’m super passionate,” as he put it.

They were the only two in their division. It’s a hard time of year to stage a show, with Tryon two weeks ago and Southern Pines coming up. Also, competing a four-in-hand is an expensive and time-consuming proposition, and it’s more popular in Europe than it is here. And as noted by Jimmy, who has won a few national championships himself, init’s “difficult times with Covid; it’s hard to get horses fit for one show.”

But both Chester and Jimmy are world-class and proficient at what they do, so it made things interesting for those watching.

Chester said “we’ve been working super-hard through Covid, evidenced by showing up here and having a 37 (penalty) dressage.”

Although Jimmy, 63, said he would retire from international competition after the 2018 gold, he still trains at home as if he were going to a big event.

“I do this because I love it, 44 years or something,” he said. It helped that Taz Lester and his wife, Amber, came back to help Jimmy at the competition.

Next year is the world championships in Italy, and both Chester and Jimmy would like to go.

“I just bought two new horses. I still can play and do it,” said Jimmy, but noted he runs a fuel business and can’t always take time off to travel to competitions.

Of the world championships, he said, “I’m not looking to do it, but if it happens and the horses are all good and there’s money there to go, I’m in. I can’t stop–it’s just too many years.”

Misdee Wrigley, Chester and Jimmy’s 2018 teammate who is training with Boyd Exell, the 2018 world champion, is also a candidate. So it looks like the band might get back together.

Chester, 46, hopes to spend much of summer 2022 in Europe preparing for the championships.

“It just depends a little bit on what’s happening with Covid,” he pointed out, but noted some of the World Cup shows “are getting picked off already” by pandemic issues.

He may be going for national title number 19 next year at his family’s Live Oak Plantation. The Ocala show, which also features a jumping World Cup Finals qualifier, has applied for the national four-in-hand championship but the date has yet to be awarded.

“I think, with complete humility, being a multi-discipline show with a budget that’s seven figures, it has some things that a lot of the national driving shows just don’t have yet. But we have high hopes again for Live Oak and we’re excited about that,” Chester said.

He won the dressage phase at the Horse Park handily, with 37.67 penalties to Jimmy’s 51.67. The marathon was closer; Chester’s team had 100.86 penalties while Jimmy finished with 109.16.

Noting how difficult it is to build a national championships marathon course for singles and teams at the same event, Chester pointed that’s a challenge that only someone like Richard Nicoll can do, with his experience designing at several World Equestrian Games..

Jimmy won the cones section (5.35 penalties), while Chester’s score was 6.94. Chester claimed the championship, 145.47 to 166.18, with his horses, Amadeus, First Edition, Ideaal, Julius V and Reno.

“I had a couple of bobbles, I think I was a little rusty, but they still ran good,” said Jimmy of Bento V, Citens, Dapper, Jonkers Justice, Tibor and Zeppelin Lets.

Also going for another national championship at Garden State was Taylor Bradish of South Carolina, who took the singles title last year.

Taylor, a 26-year-old professional trainer, began driving when she rode for a family in Arizona where the husband drove. She didn’t compete then, but got into it when she went to work for Jennifer Matheson in Aiken, S.C. six years ago. Jennifer, to whom Taylor expressed her thanks, came to watch the marathon.

Having driven at the Horse Park last year, she knew what to expect, but she had her hands full with the tight obstacles in the marathon, which she anticipates will be good practice for challenges she would encounter at next year’s world singles championships. Like Chester and Jimmy, she praised the work of Richard Nicoll, and saw his layout as a good test of herself and the 12-year-old Katydid Duchess.

“It was physically a very demanding marathon,but that’s what you should expect for a national championship The course designer, Richard Nicoll, was absolutely amazing,” said Taylor.

It rained during her cones competition and the carriage slid a bit as a result. She sees that as practice for the 2022 championships as well, since “most of the time in Europe, it’s raining.”

The mare, who was up to the challenge, is by Danyloo, a German riding pony, and out of a Welsh/thoroughbred cross dam. The stallion won a gold medal in the single pony world championships as a six-year-old.

Although there are no hills on which to train in Aiken, Duchess easily handled the up-and-down Jersey terrain. She stays fit with plenty of work, a treadmill and a weekly visit to an Aquatread, while Taylor also rides her. In addition, there are dressage lessons with trainer Sarah Dodge in Aiken.

“I was very happy with her fitness. She was pulling my arms out in the last obstacle. She, I think, could have done a few more K (kilometers),” Taylor observed.

She was second in dressage and cones, but won the marathon handily which enabled her to wind up in first place overall with 142.47 penalties over Carrie Ostrowski and Gellerduht on 146.54. There were four in the division.

“We were missing a few,” said Taylor, “but it was still a very good competition.”

Now she’s looking ahead to 2022 and not only the championships, but also her wedding to Tyler Golden, who works in the field of health and safety but came to New Jersey as Duchess’s groom. Is that good practice for being Taylor’s groom next year?

Taylor’s navigator, with whom she had not driven previously, was Maggie O’Leary. She is the assistant trainer for Sarah Schmitt, who runs a stable in Annandale. Maggie had a turn in the driver’s seat herself during the Preliminary Single Horse section, where she won the marathon and was second overall  with Emdora Hof.

See full list of results by clicking on link below:

Garden State Final with Horses