Carriage driving event at the Horse Park. Carriage driving event at the Horse Park. (August 04, 2004)

The Peninsula Carriage Driving Club of Woodside will hold its 10th carriage driving event from Friday, August 6, through Sunday, August 8, at the Horse Park at Woodside, 3674 Woodside Road.

The event honors the late Henry Boyd, a veterinarian in Marin County, who pioneered combined driving events in Northern California.

Combined driving has no jumping, but there will be a dressage test, a cross-country course called the marathon, and an obstacle or cones course.

The public is invited to attend the event in which horses and carriages take part in the dressage and obstacle course, then switch to metal carriages to race across the cross-country course.

The combined driving event will include driven dressage beginning at 1 p.m. Thursday and resuming at 9 a.m. Friday; a cross-country marathon course beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday; and an obstacle course, using cones, beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Driving club president Ellie Ferrari is assisting chairman Gerald Fisher with the event, which is free and open to the public.

The driving club was founded in 1982. Its members use a wide variety of horses, but predominantly light horses such as Morgans, Standardbreds and Arabs; however, many members have ponies, and a handful use donkeys and draft horses.

They drive numerous types of vehicles, ranging from inexpensive bicycle-wheeled training cars to high-style gigs and phaetons.

The combined driving event benefits Driving for the Disabled, which offers carriage driving for the disabled; and BOK, a therapeutic riding program for handicapped children.

For more information, log on at henryboydcde.com or call Ellie Ferrari at 851-3543.

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