MARCH 2011
Saturday, March 26th 2011
8am - 4pm
Tom O’Carroll Clinic
& Open Practice or
Trail Driving Day
Hosted by club member
Debbie White in Hondo
Negative coggins required
NO DOGS ALLOWED
Individual one hour (50 minute) lessons beginning at 8am.
LESSON SPACES HAVE ALL BEEN RESERVED
$85.00 per individual lesson - Lesson spaces are all reserved.
$10.00 to audit for the day. You can learn a lot from watching the lessons.
Audit fee also includes bringing your horse and driving the trails or practicing.
We have now added a fun Trail Driving Day during our March Tom O’Carroll clinic! I had the pleasure
of visiting with club member Debbie White who is hosting the clinic in Hondo. We took a lovely
drive through her property with her Morgan gelding and she kindly suggested inviting members to
come out that day and trail drive for fun! So, the $10 audit fee also includes bringing your horse
and driving her many trails! Debbie has 130 acres with over 65 acres containing carriage trails for us to drive that day. There are a number of areas with thorny ground, so it is highly suggested to have wood, metal or solid tires.
A little about Tom O'Carroll...
“Having trained hundreds of horses of virtually every breed, Tom regularly
travels over much of the U.S. teaching novice to advanced drivers, including
several that have been short-listed for advanced United States Equestrian Team
competitions. He is currently training for one of three U.S. pair drivers
competing at the combined driving World level.”
“Tom O’Carroll, owner of Good Hands Training Center specializes in training driving equines
and their owners. My staff and I train all breeds, and everything from mini donkeys to draft teams.
My students graduate to do all types of driving - casual recreational driving, pleasure driving shows,
combined driving competitions, arena driving, trail rides and endurance drives. I am just as proud
of the students that confidently take their families out for Sunday afternoon country-road drives
as the ones that compete at national and international levels.
My teaching emphasis is on SAFE DRIVING. I believe that a properly trained equine and a well trained
and educated whip (driver) can enjoy many years of safe, incident-free driving. When my students
bond with their equine, and feel comfortable and safe while driving – no matter the environment – I have done my work well.”
Please RSVP to
Learn more about Tom O'Carroll on his website
EVENT REVIEW: Our March event was another great one.
I think everyone who attended the Tom O’Carroll clinic had a great day!
A big thanks to Debbie and Brett White for hosting....Brett did a great job
of being the resident “muscle” when needed and running all kinds of errands.
All eight of the driving lessons went well, and my own was fantastic! I’ve been having a
problem with Arrow tipping his head to the left...but Tom soon had us traveling nice and straight,
and bending well doing circles.Everyone’s horse was well behaved and Tom had us all
working hard and learning new techniques. I enjoyed watching some of the other lessons and of course
chatting with everyone. It was so nice to meet some of our members in person
that I had only met by email before ...Penny Mikeman and her husband from Corpus and
Sisu Morris with her donkey. Sally Armstrong also brought her donkey and was kind
enough enough to let me drive him. He was a very well behaved guy and being body
clipped and shiny wasvery elegant...if you can say a mini donkey is elegant! Ok...he was really CUTE!
Rhonda and Jim Bennett also brought their two handsome donkeys to get them used to traveling to new places.
Debbie’s big airy barn was a great spot for our lunch break with the ceiling fans providing
a nice cool breeze. I think we had a group of 25+ members throughout the day.
Diane Law was our last minute photographer for the day and I’ll post pictures on the website as soon as
I have them. (Thank you Diane!) A big thanks again to Debbie and Brett White for hosting, and to
everyone who came out and shared their time together. Finally, a special thanks to Tom O’Carroll
for sharing all of his years of knowledge and experience to help us be better drivers!