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- Garden State Combined Driving Event winners Scott Monroe and Shadow
- © 2006 by Nancy Jaffer
Allentown, N.J., May 8, 2006 -- "Let's go to the videotape" is a phrase usually used in the context of football or basketball reporting, but this weekend it was effectively applied to settle a dispute in combined driving.
Scott Monroe, defending his 2005 National Singles Championship at the Garden State Combined Driving Event, had a marvelous marathon Saturday. Or so he thought, until the scores came out, and he found he had been charged 20 penalties for allegedly taking the gates out of order at "Old Glory," the last of eight hazards on the course at the Horse Park of New Jersey.
Scott was quite sure he had negotiated the hazard properly. There's more than one route through such a winding hazard, and while his way was different, it was legal. But how to prove it?
Then Adam Skipper, who likes to take videos at driving events, popped up with the tape he had taken at the hazard.
"That was heaven-sent," said Scott.
The ground jury hiked up to the hazard, Adam showed the tape and Scott explained how he had driven his black Morgan, Bethesda After Dark (better known as Shadow), around Old Glory's many twists and turns. The 20 penalties were removed and he was declared the winner of the marathon. The whole process took two or three hours.
"As one person said, I was the only one who had to do two marathons in one day," said Scott. "It was stressful enough to do the marathon and then to have to go through this, when everything could be taken away from you, when we knew we were right. But we needed proof and the video was the proof."
Of course, there was still another day of competition to come, with the cones segment the final proving ground for the championship.
Fred Merriam, a former national champion, won the dressage with another Morgan, Gaitwood Lightwing, and was still in the lead by 4.65 penalties after the marathon when the scores of the two phases were added together, because Scott placed sixth in dressage.
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- Garden State runner-up Fred Merriam
- © 2006 by Nancy Jaffer
Fred, a Vermonter, told me he had given Gaitwood Lightwing a year off after the last world championship.
"We drove around the farm and looked at the trees and leaves. We didn't look at the inside of a dressage ring," he said. "It rejuvenates the system." He felt the Morgan deserved a break because in competition, "He's a very dedicated horse. He gives 200 percent all the time, I don't want to cook his brain."
At the Horse Park, the cones phase involves a course divided between two rings, an unusual vision with the horses going from one to another as they hustle to finish within the tight time allowed.
Such times can be "unrealistic," Scott suggested, and it's particularly tough to make on the hard-packed surface at the park, where carriages going too fast can skid. "It was a very challenging course; it makes us better, but everyone had time penalties," he pointed out.
Scott, next-to-last to go in the cones, finished with time penalties (but no balls down) and headed off to the stable. He didn't bother to watch Fred's round; after all, Fred was the first American to win an individual medal in a world driving championship when he took the bronze in 2002. Scott naturally figured Fred would keep his lead. Then someone ran up to Scott and said, "You won." It wasn't exactly an official announcement, so he was a bit skeptical.
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- Eleanor Gallagher, third at Garden State
- © 2006 by Nancy Jaffer
"But word started to spread that he'd had a ball down and time penalties, and we'd won. It was a surprise and a thrill and an honor," Scott said. He wound up with 125.56 penalties to 129.5 for Fred. Eleanor Gallagher was third on 134.25 with her black Gelderlander, Kashmier, while Sterling Graburn, who has a striking gray Belgian warmblood gelding, Quincey, finished fourth with 137.31.
Sterling, by the way, is a fourth-generation horseman. When I asked if his great-grandfather was involved with driving, Sterling smiled graciously and replied that he was "by necessity." No cars in those days, remember?
The Advanced Single Horse Division drew 22 starters, because there was more than a title at stake here. The event was a selection trial for this summer's World Singles Championships in Italy.
