Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2010 | Page 107

the rider

Island Life - October/November 2010
and it was his mother who saw the

of the team of four and its human

advertisement and thought he’d

team-mates is remarkable, but thanks

enjoy the job of groom to Georgina

to articulated points between the

Frith. Today Matt’s week consists of

steering wheels and the carriage it does

grooming, bathing, trimming socks and

a handy about-face around a post. How

beards, all the usual groomy things.

fast, how neat and how safe a turn

But at the weekend he is there in his

reflects the skill of the team.

glad rags, hanging off the back of a

With such a time-pressured event it is

three-person carriage as four powerful

inevitable that something, sometime,

horses charge up hills, dales, through

will go wrong. Body protection and

gates and over water. Somehow you

hard hats can’t mitigate against

can see that flying planes would pale by

everything and a quick turn in slippery

comparison.

conditions a few years ago caused

“Competitions are three-day events,”

the carriage to hit a tree. “We were

explains Matt. “We start by getting the

all three thrown out of the carriage:

horses all pretty for the dressage, which

Georgina and the other groom were

tests the ability of the driver and the

knocked out. I was thrown into a tree,

obedience of the horses. But on the

but got straight back up and tried to

second day it’s the marathon, which

catch the horses. But, with nobody

tests the horses’ fitness.”

guiding them, they’d run into a tree

A timed section, to begin, penalises
the team not only for being slow,
but for being too fast too. “There’s

and one was so badly injured we lost
her.”
Given the heat of competition – at the

a two-minute window in which to

National Championships up to 26 teams

complete,” he explains. A walking

compete – it is amazing such accidents

section cools the horses down, before

are comparatively rare, and this is due

the final section. “This is the fun

to the part played by each member of

bit, the obstacles. You have to go

the team, human and equine alike.

through the gates in order and in a set
direction.”
And, of course, at speed. Given the
length of the set-up, the dexterity

Forming the team is a painstaking
business, and again Matt’s experience
and instinct play a huge part. “You
can’t just stick some horses together

horses much. He had ridden from a
young age, but aged eight he was
‘spooked’ by a pony, and he went right
off horses until he was around 16.
“Then Mum bred a little Dartmoor Pony.
She had trouble handling it, so I got
involved,” smiles Matt.
Even though horses had re-entered his
life, Matt wasn’t about to be deflected
from what he saw as his calling –
aeronautical engineering. Until, that
is, he found the University course for
which he’d striven wasn’t quite his
subject after all. “I took a step back
and thought about what I really wanted
to do.” He transferred to an equine
degree, and the rest, as they say, is
horse play.
Hardly that. As part of his course
he had to take a work placement,

Photo: Relaxing after the event: Matt takes the reins

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