She and Thor’s Toy Truck make the most of a wet event in Pennsylvania.

It had been almost two decades since Robin Groves had competed at The Laurels At Landhope CDE, but when she returned to West Grove, Pa., on Sept. 11-13, she and Lana Wright’s horse, Thor’s Toy Truck, won the advanced single horse division.

Groves wants to qualify the 14-year-old gelding for the World Singles Championships in Italy next year and to better their 25th placing, which was the highest U.S. placing at the 2008 World Singles Driving Championships in Poland.

Neither mud nor rain slowed down the 15-hand gelding she calls “T.J.” Despite the heavy going, he came in 1 second over the time allowed on the marathon to retain the lead he took in dressage.

“He is fit and likes to run,” said Groves, of Brownsville, Vt. “He has lots of will, lots of go and likes his job.”

She and her husband Wilson have not been to The Laurels since 1991 because The Laurels’ dates fell at the same time as the Green Mountain Horsemen’s Association pleasure show, which is run by Wilson. This year a change in dates allowed them a chance to return to the event, and Wilson and UVM Worthy finished sixth in the advanced singles.

The unbroken Thor, by Wright’s stallion Thor Of Greystone and out of a Connemara mare named Night Moves, was gelded when he was 5 and sent for training to the Groves’ R & W Carriage Services barn. Wilson trained the aggressive Thor for a year before he would let Robin drive him.

Now Robin likes to mix Thor’s outings to keep him sharp. She’s done endurance ride and drive events and pleasure shows and hitches him to a sleigh in the winter.

A Fitting Win For Fetters

Meredith Fetters kept the family name alive at The Laurels, living up to the legacy of her father, Bob, who died earlier this year.

Meredith, Kennett Square, Pa., and her LR Ami Sahib swept the intermediate single horse class and also won the Bob Fetters Memorial Dressage award, which went to the driver with the best dressage score in each division.

Meredith’s mother, Nancy, handed out the prizes and told her daughter, “I think your father is up there, smiling down at us,” recalled Meredith.

Bob Fetters was on the original committee at The Laurels. He drove at the intermediate level with his pony, Captain Crunch, and did so well in his tests that people nicknamed him “dressage boy,” said Meredith.

Meredith’s trainer, Suzy Stafford, won the Fetters award in the preliminary division. Lisa Singer, winner of the advanced horse pairs, claimed the advanced award. Lindsey Nevitt went back to her Indiana home with the honors for the junior division.

Meredith’s test with her chestnut Morgan gelding, 10, netted a score of 52.67, which put them in the lead.
“It was good but not great,” said Meredith. “He was very willing in the dressage arena, which was a giant puddle. I felt I was flowing through the water.”

Shelly Temple purchased LR Ami Sahib five years ago, hoping to pair him with her Morgan, LR Ami B-Line, winner of the advanced single pony division. However, Temple’s Morgan only grew to 14.2 hands while “Venture” topped out at 15 hands. Meredith had been driving Dartmoors at the time, but she sold them to Mary Clark Lind, a student of Temple’s, and bought Venture from Temple.

Meredith’s husband, Larry Hart, is her navigator. “I couldn’t do this without him,” said Meredith, the director of information technology at The Chester County Hospital.

The Right Decision

Temple, who won the advanced single pony class, was on the fence, trying to decide whether she and her LR Ami B-Line would even start in the marathon.

“I didn’t think as of Friday night that I would go. They had all the four-in-hands going before us so I knew the going was going to be tough,” said Temple, of Powhatan, Va.

When she saw the organizers made changes—shortening Section A and giving competitors more time—she decided to give it a try.

“He was fine at the vet check and wasn’t hot so we decided to go on and play it by ear,” recalled Temple, who trains and teaches driving.

But the track had gotten bad, so when Temple got to the last hazard, she let her pony pick his way around. “By then the rain was pelting us, and he just said to me ‘I’m tired but OK,’ ” she said of the Wyoming-bred pony. “We went through cones with just some time penalties but had no balls down.”

“Cooper” won the preliminary single pony class with Temple in 2004 and came back in 2005 to be the reserve national advanced single pony champion. The twosome also won the national advanced pony title in 2006.

The chestnut Morgan (Tanglewood Tradewinds—Melissa Nora BEA), 11, whom she had bought to be part of a pair, was her partner at the 2007 World Pony Driving Championships, where he helped the U.S. team take the bronze medal. He injured himself in the autumn of that year, so he was laid up until this year, but he is headed now to the U.S. Equestrian Federation National Championships in Kentucky in October.

Stealing The Win, Pirate-Style

Capt. Jack Sparrow and Australian driver Janelle Marshall won the intermediate single pony division. Marshall named the Connemara “Johnny” after Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates Of The Caribbean.

Muffy Seaton bought the 6-year-old (Seven Hills Grey Ghost—Tullymore’s Tully Rose) at a Georgia barn three years ago and put him in harness.

Marshall, who rode in her native country until a hip condition sidelined her, has worked for Seaton at her Aiken, S.C., barn for three years. Marshall and the gelding started at the intermediate level this year, winning at the Kentucky Gala CDE and Southern Pines (N.C.) and placing third at Live Oak (Fla.).

“He’s starting to learn the game a little bit,” said Marshall. “He grew up in the south where there was just sand, so competing in the mud was quite interesting for him.”

Although she credited the show organizers and the ground committee for making changes in the marathon to give the pony drivers more time, including taking out a couple of more demanding hazards and shortening the track, Marshall was still conservative.

“I did not want him to pull a muscle or hurt a tendon,” she said. “He just kept going, especially in the water.”