We began driving over 30 years ago when we lived in Chester County, PA, and soon became active members of the Carriage Association of America (CAA), and the American Driving Society (ADS). We drove our eventing Thoroughbreds and our foxhunters for many years, attending the ADS and CAA conferences every season while collecting and building an antique carriage collection. The photo at the right taken by Brantt Gamma of our lovely Thoroughbred driving horse put to a Lady's parasol phaeton at a 1990 Carriage Association of America conference became the front cover of the Maryland Horse for a feature article on carriage driving. In 1992 after winning a Concours d'Elegance class with "Annie" "Andy" and "Annie" at a 1994 CAA conference in Shelburn, Vermont "Andy" and "Flag" at 2002 Ayrshire Farm, Upperville, VA "Libby" and "Flag" at a 2007 Picnic drive, Middleburg, VA In 1989 we acquired our first Welsh pony for the children. "Penny" was a lovely chestnut roan Section B, a former hunter pony that was a darling, and was a very easy study to drive. A year later she was joined by "Annie" a lovely liver chestnut Section A who was also a former hunter show pony. We tragically lost Penny a year later, and her place was taken a few months later by "Andy", a Section C Welsh pony cob. Annie and Andy were a perfect match in harness, and were the catalyst that launched our changeover of antique horse carriages to antique pony carriages. We took this cute pair to all the carriage drives and national conferences, enjoying them for many years. One of our neighbors was Nancy Bedford, the owner of the famous Findeln Stud, and it was in admiration of the great Downland bloodlines in her beautiful, talented Section B ponies that convinced us to purchase Findeln American Flag when she disbursed her stud farm. When Annie suffered a stifle injury that ended her driving career and subsequently retired to be a babysitter pony for a family of young children, we paired Flag with Andy. Andy and Flag adjusted to become a very nice pair. To the right is a full page (professionally shot) photo of them heading down the driveway to Ayrshire house appeared in the Loudoun Magazine as the feature photo for an article on carriage driving in Northern Virginia. My neighbor, Karen, was along for the drive, and it is her that you see sitting in the back of the carriage, facing the camera. Another photo my family with me driving Andy and Flag through Newstead Farm one lovely Sunday morning is the opening photo for the chapter on carriage driving in Bruce Smart's book "Partnership, The Community of the Horse". However, Andy was just a tad too small and too cobby for the bigger stride and taller size of his new Section B partner. So... that launched us on a search for Andy's replacement. We looked among the breeders of Section B Welsh ponies for a close-up of the Findeln breeding, finding it in the Benlea ponies. For many years Jim McLean of Benlea Farm and Nancy Bedford of Findeln were the best of friends, swapping bloodlines for their herds of Welsh A's and B's. In 2000 we purchased Benlea Liberty as a weanling to match with Flag. Watching her grow was delightful, and once she was ready to learn to drive she quickly became a darling harness pony. The prefix of Findeln and Benlea produce ponies of incredibly beauty and athletic ability that are the most elegant, sweet, mannerly driving ponies I've ever had the pleasure to sit behind. We were so taken by her that we purchased another Benlea pony, Benlea Drummer Boy, two years later. "Drummer" was slated as a replacement for Flag who was approaching his teens. Unfortunately, Drummer did not stop growing when he hit 13.1h. He kept growing and growing until he finally topped out at 14 hands - far too large for our medium pair, but just the right size to be my future riding pony. Foxhunting with Radnor Hunt - 1979 Rocky and Flora - March 2004 Of course, switching from Thoroughbreds to medium ponies meant divesting the antique horse vehicles and acquiring antique vehicles of pony size - which has proved much harder to do since very few good pony vehicles still exist. We did retain two horse sized antique vehicles only because they are too beautiful and bring back too many wonderful memories of our years driving with our friends and coaching club members in Chester County, PA. In 2006 I organized the Tuesday Afternoon Ladies Driving Club for ladies who drove pairs of horses or ponies. This is a fun invitation-only private club hosting pairs drives based in our lovely driving territory of western Loudoun County, VA, with additional drives being held at various other estates in Clarke and Facquier Counties. Foxhunting with Itchy - 2007 Foxhunting with Drummer - 2011 Besides driving we enjoy foxhunting as well. I have been foxhunting since the mid-1970's with hunts in Chester County, PA, on my Thoroughbred mare who not only hunted but also evented, competed in dressage (including showing at Dressage at Devon) and drove! She was sweet, loving, mannerly, and brilliant over fences. She had a heart bigger than all outdoors, and was my special love. She was my favorite foxhunter, and it has been difficult to find a replacement so perfect in every way, until I moved to Virginia and found myself given a beautiful former dressage horse called "Rocky", who was owned by the friend of my neighbor Karen. Rocky, amazingly enough, was a natural foxhunter and took to the sport like a duck to water. Karen and I hunted together for several years with Mrs. Fout's MOC pack who hunted both Middleburg and Orange County hunt territories in northern Virginia. When Rocky left Karen's farm a few years later to return to his owner, I started hunting my 14.2h Welsh/Arab endurance pony. For three years he and I were hunt staff and whipper-ins for Mrs. Fout's MOC pack, then we took a break for two years to just concentrate on endurance riding. We returned to hunting after that with Snickersville Hounds (Middleburg)- a wonderful hunt with terrific, fun members, and a brilliant pack of hounds that are pure joy to follow. In 2011 I received my colors with Snickersville. A very proud achievement! I am now riding both "Beaverwood Spiderman" (aka "Itchy") and my Welsh Section B "Benlea Drummer Boy" foxhunting. For the past 11 years I have been involved in endurance riding with my Welsh/Arab pony "Itchy". It is quite an excellent yet demanding sport, especially when one has the Blue Ridge Mountains within hacking distance for their "training territory". I love the sport -- it is very social, great fun and very educational. My endurance pony and I were also the "poster child" for the AERC when a photo of us taken during the No Frills 55 mile Endurance Ride was selected by the AERC for a full page color AERC ad that appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of the Modern Arabian Horse magazine. In 2010 we were named to the AERC "Decade Team" for horses and riders that had completed 10 years together with at least 1 endurance ride (50 miles and up) each year. In 2012 I will begin competing Drummer in the sport, and hope to eventually make the Decade Team with him as well! So many accolades for our ponies in both national magazines, print and photographs! Me and USEF President David O'Connor at the 2006 USEF Pegasus Media Awards at the 2007 USEF Annual Conference, Louisville, KY As a writer I have written for the ADS "The Whip" in the 1990's and was the only writer with multiple articles chosen for the ADS collection of their best articles in the "Best of the Whip" (the first publication). Several of my articles have also appeared in the CAA magazine. I began writing articles for the American Endurance Ride Conference magazine "Endurance News" around 2004, and in 2006 one of my articles won the USEF Pegasus Media Award for the Best Feature Article in a Magazine. A panel of USEF judges put my article up on top over 100 entries submitted from equine magazines (professional and breed/sport) nationwide, and I was told later on that the judges were so impressed by my article that (for the first ever) they did not award a runner-up. My husband and I flew down to Lexington, KY to the 2007 USEF Annual Conference to receive in person the award presented to me by USEF President, David O'Connor. Accolades were published in a following "Endurance News" of the award, the first magazine award ever won by the AERC. To say the least, my editors were thrilled. Aside from all our driving/foxhunting/endurance activities, we especially love living in these glorious Virginia countyside we call home. Our farm name comes from the Roman constellation "Auriga" (Awe-rye-gah) - a winter grouping of five stars which is depicted as a charioteer driving four horses abreast. Since the Romans actually drove and rode ponies, we thought the name quite fitting! Our current farm is located just a mile from the 1740's Quaker settlement of Union. Our property goes far back into early Loudoun County history as being part of the 2,628 acres owned by Richard Blackburn in 1741. Our farm was at the very upper left hand corner of Blackburn's land which included the 2 mile road from Bloomfield to Unison. Our farm is situated on that road at the halfway point between Union and Bloomfield. It wasn't unusual for early villages and towns to be surrounded by little farms, especially those situated on heavily trafficked byways, and as the decades passed, Blackburn's land was subdivided, leased, and sold into smaller parcels, especially those bits of land along the main roads. However, in early 1800 the surrounding area along the Bloomfield and Unison road were bought up by the enterprising farmer, George Keen. By 1850 he had emassed an estate of several hundred acres commanding both sides of the Unison-Bloomfield road stretching from town limit to town limit. The original small farm dwellings of log cabins were left to rot, or were torn down to open the fields to grazing cattle. Recently, while hand digging fence post holes, we found evidence of disturbed ground and maybe, just possibly, a foundation site, but nothing has been confirmed because to excavate would be a highly expensive and exhaustive affair. Any dwelling place that used to exist on our farm is now long, long gone. In the 1930's the first electric lines were brought into the county, all the poles following the old roads, many which no longer exist except as bridle paths, or indentations in the ground on private property. The 100 year old power line poles that cut through our property are on a diagonal as they once serviced an old residence two farms away. All traces of that residence are now long gone with no trace left behind except the line of electrical poles to point where it used to be. The current house on our farm now sits on a high knoll overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west, and George Keen's original 1700's stone manor house directly across the road. The Piedmont Fox Hounds, founded in the 1840's, still hunt this area on Tuesdays, and in the early fall mornings and late winter days the musical cry of hounds hot on the scent of a fox is wonderful to hear. Even the local surrounding roads are also little changed from the early 1800's. Perhaps widened just a bit, but still remaining gravel byways just perfect for horses and carriages. It was these roads that encouraged us to come to this part of western Loudoun, and to have stayed for the last 22 years. These precious old roads were the catalyst for developing a county Rural Roads District to protect and maintain this unique heritage and prevent them from disappearing under a layer of blacktop and modern paving.