DRIVING FEATURE


Painstakingly, Pat rebuilt the trolley – it had been made by Baileys, but


didn’t follow quite the usual build – and one of his proudest and greatest memories is driving it at Hickstead with a horse the family had bred, Garstons Splash. “It was the fi rst time mum had seen the trolley in the ring – she had come into the arena and was standing by one of the jumps watching with the tears running down her face. It was truly choking – her rheumatism was bad by then, but she managed to get up into the carriage at the end. It was a great moment – I just wish someone had taken a photo.” Although he still drives it was Pat’s talent for making things that has led


to him being less active at the reins. When he was building a horse box for the family with living in it – the fi rst such one they had had – he fell and hurt his back. More and more the pain and damage he did to his spine has kept him off the box seat.


A good temperament For Eddie, it is a slightly diff erent story. A diabetic, it is his constant hard work breaking and training the horses that they both breed and buy that keeps the condition under control. “He’s up as soon as it’s light in the summer time and he walks miles and miles with the horses on long reins as he’s training them,” says Julie.


“I just love it,” Eddie concedes. “We had a couple of youngsters recently


and Pat told me to get someone else to break them in – I was getting too old! But it is the interesting part to me and now Lucy helps me all the time. She is as keen as I am. Movement is certainly an important thing when we are looking for horses to buy, but so is temperament to us. We want them to be good to be around – most of them stay with us forever so we want them as friends too!” Both men are BDS judges and have been for 20 years or more and Eddie


is also a Hackney Horse Society judge. Much as they enjoy it, you see them less in the ring than many as they are still so active in their showing. As, too, these day is Julie and Eddie’s daughter Lucy.


All for one and one for all A bit more reluctant than you might imagine to take on the mantle of showing given that she is a member of this family, once Lucy did take to it, there was no stopping her and she has the success to prove that she has the same high standard and work ethic as her grandparents as well as her father and uncle. “We had to bribe her to get up into the carriage with her


dad when she was little,” Julie laughs. “T en the boys bought her a carriage of her own one birthday when she was about 10 and she just took to it.” Showing fi rst a little grey pony called Misty, Lucy has


progressed through to Hackneys – she will be best known for her current ponies, Royal Sunshine. With him she won HOYS in 2008, 10 years aſt er her father had won the title, but he says her winning was the highlight of his showing life. Interestingly, some 10 years earlier, the boys’ father, Eddie snr, was reserve champion in the concours’elegance,


which was the harness competition at HOYS then. Lucy has been junior whip champion just about everywhere – many times – the only title for which she has competed eluding her being at the BDS Annual Show. “I was reserve three times,” she says


with a rueful smile. Quiet though Lucy is, she has the determination to show her support for


the cause of driving that is a part of all the Smith Family. When her father and uncle were approached a few years ago by the BDS to sponsor one of the outside classes at the National Championships (they agreed and sponsor the Hackney private driving) Lucy asked if she could sponsor a class herself too. T e young driver class now bears her name as sponsor – and it comes from her pocket. T e Smith family today – Eddie and Julie, Pat, Lucy, Luke, Steve and


Mike together with other members – is a family in the deep sense of the word, being ‘all for one and one for all. Yet they are not exclusive; everyone who knows them knows, too, that they would – and do – help wherever and whoever they can. T ey do much, quietly, for charity in both small and bigger ways and their nets spread far and wide. Whatever they do they do wholeheartedly.


Top leſt : Eddie Smith winning at the Horse of the Year Show in 1998. Top right: And competing at the New Forest Show. Middle: Lucy Smith winning HOYS in 2008, and below leſt : In the ribbons with her Hackney pony, Royal Sunshine.


32 Carriage Driving January 2012


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60