Minta
has not only succeeded at the highest level in the show ring but has competed at
international level in Driving Trials with a team of ponies. She also competes
with a pair and tandem both indoors and out.Minta's involvement with driving started at an early age when her mother, having been given £15 to spendon a pram bought a governess cart a set of harness and a shetland pony! She's never looked back!
This early childhood was mostly spent in Ireland where she was involved in every discipline using the same pony harness and carriage. In fact she is probably once of very few to have competed in driving trials in a governess cart, the same vehicle she drove at the Royal Dublin Show coming in the first 3 against the gigs and flashy welsh ponies!
A weekwith Sally Waldron in her early teens taught Minta to drive a single, pair and tandem as well as to cook! Subsequent weeks gave her a taste of team driving. By the age of 18 she had been Junior Champion in Ireland twice and British Junior Champion at the BDS show at Smiths Lawn. The following year she took the BDS Supreme Championship with Ted Rowley's team of ponies. She has won this prestigious title twice since then, in 2002 with Nicola Blandin's pony tandem of Wharley Pageboy and Wharley Cadet shown below.
Minta
has not only succeeded at the highest level in the show ring but has competed at
international level in Driving Trials with a team of ponies. She also competes
with a pair and tandem both indoors and out.
With this background of having been there and got the T-shirt mostly without strong financial backing she is ably qualified to produce ponies at all levels and in all disciplines.
Minta was one of the youngest BDS judges ever being on the panel at 19. She became a British Horse Driving Trials Association judge in 1988 and has since judged at many prestigious shows and events.
Photo - Hilary Cotter - Carriage Driving Magazine
In many ways Minta is a non-conformist and she believes that there are sometimes many ways to get to a successful result, however and perhaps because of this she recognises that there must be an orthodox and accepted method. She holds the LHHI certificate and examines BDS Levels 1-4 but sees exams as no substitute for daily experience. To add to this she set up a Carriage Driving course at Merrist Wood College, Guildford which ran successfully for 5 years.
Minta set up the Sports Group for disabled drivers and has been on the BDS Council and is currently the RDA representative and she is the Chairman for the Tandem Club.
Photo Sally Taylor - Carriage Driving Magazine
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