CIAT Beamish 2024
- Lester Dagge -
BRINGING LIFE TO HERITAGE
The third Attelage de Tradition at Beamish celebrated the best of heritage and traditional carriage driving together at one of the most imposing venues in the country. With grateful thanks to Beamish - The Living Museum of the North and Beamish stalwart Chris Thompson, the Attelage event offered an outstanding weekend of carriage driving and camaraderie. With improvements made to event management, enhanced facilities and a restructured programme, event director Richard Lanni and Alan Ross as Course Designer used their honed skills from the Glamis Castle competition to provide an exceptional competitors and visitors experience.
The geographic location of Beamish throws up some interesting challenges which caused some concern in previous years, but using the Italian competition format, the repeated use of the flat course for the routier offered a less challenging road drive. Beamish museum recognised the value of the Attelage de Tradition competition as a key element for their living heritage ethos and the competitors did not disappoint. With a variety of 14 turnouts from Welsh PONIES to the magnificent heavy horses, we had a wonderful selection of driven turnouts on show. It was a credit to the competitors how all their horses behaved with the hustle and bustle of the museum which celebrated the first weekend of the school holidays and blessed with good weather, saw the public out in force marvelling at the carriages. It was a delight to see young families and grandparents exclaim at the passing turnouts, with the heavy horses and the Dalmatian raising the most interest.
It was great to see competitors travel far and wide to this event, but particularly rewarding to see so many local competitors take part. Ably supported by John Stephenson's stables we had a number of turnouts supplied by John, who also was a kind and generous sponsor of this event. Using his horses, Jimmy Jeffery won the highest accolade for best presentation making John incredibly proud. John's protege Lizzy Mattison from nearby Stanley also did well with her magnificent Andalusian stallion and gig sourced from BDS Area Commissioner Ian Graham. Ian too took part with his pair of horses to a delightful recently acquired wagonette. Ian's infectious enthusiasm was plain to see and a great testimony to this competition. It is critically important that grassroots competitors take part and are openly welcomed with original vehicles of all conditions including those with a few miles on the clock. It is far more important to take part with an original vehicle - even if it looks a little aged - than to have a brand new reproduction carriage - the aim is to re-use and promote our traditional heritage.
'Poacher-turned-gamekeeper' Chris Thompson also took part using his own family French Dog cart and was able to savour first hand the delights of the competition and the delighted spectators. The success of any CIAT Attelage event is seeing returning competitors with 'bigger and better' turnouts. This year we see local carriage master Jimmy Tate and his wife Anne with a particularly polished turnout using ANNE'S multi talented ride and drive coloured horse to a new stick back gig where they presented a relaxed effortless turnout. Russell Hand too used the event to trial his young Dutch KWPN horses to a tandem - and getting in much needed practice aead of the Tandem Club meet he is hosting next month. His delightful Windover Dog cart was immaculately presented, whilst his understudy Nicola Locklin looked outstanding with his Peters Ladies Park Phaeton to a Dutch harness Horse.
Much of the ethos of the Attelage de Tradition events is the FRIENDLY camaraderie and this was particularly evident with everyone joining in and helping one another. The Friday night meet and greet took part after the motorcade to view the routier. The Meet and Greet took full advantage of the Beamish hospitality with a 'Fish Supper' and Pimms reception allowing participants to mingle and get aquainted. This was followed by a private viewing in the newly opened cinema where we saw a wonderful selection of Pathé news reels of vintage stories including the Haydon's and Mossman stories- it was particularly worrying as many of us could name the characters, their horses and carriages! Much thought and care had been put into this viewing and we are most grateful for Beamish's efforts.
The next morning saw a relaxed start for the judging at 11.00am to allow time for the general public to view the various turnouts. With international AIAT judges Paul Mills (England) Ad van der Pluijm (The Netherlands) and Lester Dagge (Wales), and probationary judge Sharon Wootton, the standards were set high. Newcomer Gordon Watson took part for the first time with his delightful part bred Friesian to a newly acquired Country Brake whilst enjoying domestic rivalry with his wife Patricia who drove her Dales to a timeless Windover Dog Cart. Another quintessential dog cart turnout was presented to perfection by Scottish competitor Ewan MacInnes and demonstrated how to show a country turnout to its best with his pair of bay Lipizzaners’. Another formidable Scottish competitor with an equally well presented Sporting Phaeton by Croal was Alan Ross with his distinctive tandem of coloured horses and ably supported by his daughter and grand daughter. As if Alan didn't have enough on his plate with a Tandem, he was also responsible for much of the event planning.
This YEAR'S event attracted a number of fascinating turnouts that showed the diversity of the horse at its best. With all categories covered from formal park turnouts such as Nicola Locklin to the iconic country turnouts such as Ewan MacInnes. Gavin Holmes took the stage to show the full magnificent spectacle of working heavy horses with his Shire and Clydesdale to a Bottle Dray, previously used by the world famous Scottish & Newcastle Breweries. They proved that this event offers a great showcase for all types of equines and all sizes of traditional carriages in all their refinery.
CIAT Attelage doyenne Rosemary Neale also travelled far from Bedfordshire with her pair of Welsh Ponies to an enchanting Crescent Phaeton by McMullen of Hertford. Rosemary as head of the AIAT in the United Kingdom relished in the task of the three stages of the competition that included a 12km routier with the five difficulties of a 360º one handed circle, passing a working tractor, a stop - featuring the local Police officer, the drinking glass and the salute. Simple enough difficulties, but it was these challenges that sorted the 'wheat from the chaff' with many competitors losing out on penalties, both on time and failure of tasks. It was however Gilly Chippendale with her iconic Welsh pony Bunbury Sandringham who took home the silver and showed everyone how it was done! Ably supported by her groom Nic Brown, Gilly has been a great ambassador for Attelage de Tradition and promoting the Welsh Section B breed which was recently listed on the endangered breeds at risk register. Gilly has been a great supporter of the Attelage de Tradition events over the years and it was great to see her take her first supreme Championship win.
Finally, much praise has to offered to Richard Lanni and Alan Ross for their hard work at staging this event, but in particular their vast team of hard working volunteer stewards and helpers including Sandi Lanni, Alex Lanni and scorekeeper Andrew Tilley. Much gratitude is also given to Wally Binder as Technical Delegate and his wife Eunice for their continued help and dedication to support these competitions, for without them, these events would simply not happen.
