Draw your own driver's view Precision & Paces diagrams

Indoor carriage driving, that is, three-phase horse driving trials held in an arena, usually under a roof and with spectators, is still growing in popularity. Around the UK about 120 local championship qualifier events are run from October to mid-March according to national ICD rules and the best in each class of driver is invited to the British National Indoor Championships. People drive Shetlands and Shires and every type, size, shape and colour of horse and pony in between as singles, pairs, tandems teams and even unicorns.

The Indoor Finals are a three-day driving-fest featuring some of the best carriage drivers in the UK, from eight years old to over 80. This is one of the most exciting events in the driving calendar and is organised bit-by-bit throughout the year by the same team of people. My view is that indoor driving is a much-needed boost to the sport of carriage driving and that it is a powerful incentive to improve standards.

My point is that all this is run entirely by unpaid volunteers - who give up their free time to co-ordinate the national calendar of events; publish the yearbook and rules; make sure each area runs events according to the rules; build and mend the obstacle components; sort out problems and clarify drivers' classifications; offer advice (when asked); fund new areas; insure the organisation; encourage organisers; publish the results and points leagues; provide and support the (free) scoring software and manage the forum, website and points leagues. Local organisers schedule individual events and publish their timetables; co-ordinate, persuade and organise stewards, judges, scorers, arena helpers and others; sort out the venue bookings (usually a year in advance), the catering, the rosettes, the sponsorship... and much more. They are first to arrive at the venue and last to leave.

In response to an enquiry recently posted on the ICD website forum, I publish here, free, a page of ten arena diagrams in the driver's view, with C at the top, for anyone to download and scale to print as a full size A4 page. If this is too fiddly for you, please send me a request by email and I'll send you the PDF, which is easier to print on A4 paper.

To download the page of diagrams:
1) on the diagrams, right-click and you will see a menu
2a) choose "Save image as" to save the diagrams as a JPG (picture) file, which you can then copy into Word or another program, if you wish
or 2b) choose "Copy image", then paste the image into a program for printing.


Spending a few minutes drawing the diagrams is an excellent way to remember the movements, too.

To draw the diagrams...
Anyone can use it to draw their own Precision and Paces (dressage) movements as follows:
1) find a copy of the text of your test - this is important.
2) using a pencil, draw each of the ten movements in the numbered arenas on the diagrams.
3) when you are sure you have drawn them correctly, get some coloured pens and decide on the key - such as red dashed line for walk, red solid line for trot - or whatever suits you and the pens you have.
4) draw the key then draw over the pencil lines in the correct coloured pen.

If you can't manage to download and print the JPG file, please send me an email (fiona@inherent.co.uk) and I will send you the PDF.

There you have it!
My gift to you...

(Drawn using Microsoft Visio: training courses available - please ask for details)