Mill Spring, N.C. - The ultimate in athlete to horse communication, the Four-in-Hand Combined Driving competition will include drivers maneuvering four horses through three phases over three days, starting with dressage, marathon, and cones all taking place Friday-Sunday, September 21 – 23, 2018. Misdee Wrigley Miller, one of only two women competitors in the entire driving competition, will take on the best men competitors from around the world. Fighting for medal contention, Wrigley Miller will be on the U.S. Team at the FEI World Equestrian Games™ with Chester Weber and James Fairclough.
With more than 45 FEI starts accomplished in combined driving, Wrigley Miller, a fourth-generation horsewoman, moved up to the advanced level in 2010 initially collecting top placings in the pair horse division before switching to the four-in-hand horse division in 2013. She competed at the last FEI World Equestrian Games™ in 2014 in Normandy and placed fourth with the U.S. Combined Driving Team. They are looking to beat their previous placing and get on that medal podium this time.
She said, “I competed in Normandy when I had only been driving four-in-hand for nine months. To have those results was a lucky day. It was a thrill. It really was.” She continued, “I believe with all my heart that the USA is a bit of an underdog in Tryon. We've got the traditional juggernauts of the Dutch, the young Belgians, and the French are coming up. If we can have a really good day in dressage on Friday, we can put ourselves in serious medal contention. I am looking forward to putting in my best dressage test ever on Friday.”
With a solid team of three U.S. drivers to seek a medal in the USA, Wrigley Miller said, “They are two other drivers who will have my back and are a good support system. When you have three drivers who will do everything in their power for each other to have their best days ever, it’s going to be great.” She explained, “Especially for me, with Jimmy and Chester, I’m a little bit more of the novice as a World Equestrian Games competitor. I feel a lot of comfort being on the team with those two. They have been there and done that. It will be nice for me to have them as support.”
Combined drivers tend to be focused hard on each of the three phases, with a low dressage needed on the first day to be in contention by the third day. “Over the years,” she said, “the biggest change is in my understanding what is required within each phase and the setup of the horses and the strategy for the dressage test. What I have learned is that there is a strategy and a setup to do each dressage figure correctly. I’ve learned how to work and make each figure better. I never knew driving a dressage test would be so much work,” she said. “I’m very fond of saying, now that I have achieved great scores, that getting a score in the 30s is hard work. It truly is physically and mentally exhausting.”
The second day, the marathon phase, whoever is the fastest through each of the obstacles will be the winner of the phase. “The marathon phase is the phase I’ve come the farthest in with understanding how to make the loops and the timing of the loops and when to begin the turn before I was just trying to get through the obstacle in one piece," she said. "I used to wake up on the mornings of the marathon really frightened and concerned about what I might do the horses, thinking I might turn the carriage over or something. Now that I have the tools, I feel like I control my own destiny. My confidence in the marathon phase has increased exponentially. I am looking forward to it in Tryon.”
The cones phase which takes place on the third day with tired horses and the drivers must navigate horses through the many sets of cones without letting the balls drop away. The horses must have a high degree of flexibility, a willingness and good contact with their drivers to succeed without a flaw. “The cones are constant practice. Every time I train the cones I learn something new, for instance, how to make the turns through them better with good outside control. That’s one of the great things about the sport, even though you think you’ve mastered something, you find so much more to learn.”
“You have to know, even on a daily basis, the horses change. They are not the same every day. They are living beings, just as we are living beings and as a driver, you have to learn to adapt, whether your driving style or changing something like a bit on one of the horses. You have to be very quick to recognize a change in one of your horses and do what it’s going to take,” she said.
"I've been cross-training them with rider Amber Lester. She does all of the riding and works very closely with me in collaboration in noticing if a horse is not bending well on say the right side. She really helps me through the riding correctly developing the horses. I have also upped their fitness because we want them in peak condition for the WEG.” She continued, “The road to WEG has been paved with a lot of pitfalls with unexpected injuries. Keeping a horse sound headed into a key competition is important. I lost one of my best horses in December and had to rebuild the entire team, literally.” She said, “It has not been easy, and I am grateful to the team around me, to my coach Boyd Exell who always says, ‘Take a deep breath.’ Boyd actually lent me a horse at the WEG test event.”
“I am very happy to say that my main team is really working great and our competition preparing for WEG was Beeksbergen in Holland, and I knew I needed to pull out a great dressage score for the US Team Selectors, and that happened. So, here we are,” she said looking forward to WEG.
Wrigley Miller is married to her husband, James Miller, a polo player and fellow driver. They split their time between Lakewood Ranch, Fla., and their Hillcroft Farm in Paris, Ky. She also competes American Saddlebreds at the highest level. When she’s not driving combined driving horses, she is involved in the coaching divisions (historical coaches) and actively competes in American Saddlebred shows in Three-Gaited, Five-Gaited, Fine Harness, and Roadster classes.
She is one of only four amateur riders in the 115-year history to win the Open Three-Gaited World’s Grand Championship and she’s won the Ladies Three-Gaited World’s Championship the last four consecutive years. “People ask me, do I prefer competing with the four-in-hand horses or riding Saddlebreds, and I can't answer that because both bring such a feeling of such joy. When I'm riding my Saddlebreds, they are powerful and yet, so trainable and tractable. It is completely different except that they are all high-performance horses and its high-performance training for both. I have to be in my best physical condition to be able to compete in both sports. I just came off the Saddlebred Worlds Championships Show, and I had the best results of my life, and I honestly believe that the skillsets I’ve developed from four-in-hand driving translated to the saddlebred competition.”
“Both driving and Saddlebreds are exciting in their own way,” she said. “At the pinnacle of the sports, it’s an equal feeling of excitement and joy for me. Horsemanship is the same whether you do completely different disciplines. I honestly think that. For instance, My 3-Gated mare, we just won our 4th consecutive championships, she might look like a wild animal coming down the rail with the whites of her eyes showing and with ears so far forward they almost touch, while she looks total show horse, she really is a perfect ladies horse to ride. The Saddlebreds are so powerful, yet so tractable. Winning the Championships is just the ultimate experience.”
Miller and her husband, James Miller have amazing selfless energy by giving back to the horse community. They started the US Developing Driver Program, Misdee is on the Board of US Equestrian as an athlete, she helps to organize each October the Kentucky Classic CDE, previously held at the KY Horse Park though will be on held at her Hillcroft Farm on alternating years and at Hermitage Farm, to name a few of her other projects.
As a fourth-generation horsewoman, she said, “When I found out I'd inherited two carriages from my great-grandparents, I thought what am I going to do with the carriages. So, I thought I'll take up driving. I started pleasure driving, and at the time I lived in Ocala, Florida, and I went to Chester Weber's Live Oak Combined Driving event and decided that looked really cool.” She continued, “I volunteered and then navigated for a competitor, and when the 2010 World Equestrian Games came around, we helped organize it and the test event. I was on the committee there. By then, I had a few combined driving horses and said, ‘Let’s go.’”
When asked what does it feel like sitting up there and controlling four blazing horses all at once, she giggled and said, “When everything is going well, it’s just pure joy. It's all about being in the zone. Everything just slows down, and everything comes easily to you. It's about being able to enjoy four horses working together and your controlling that energy through hours and hours of training. When it all comes together, it’s the most beautiful feeling in the world.”
In gratitude, she said, "I would like to thank my husband for putting up with me and for going on this journey with me. It's a long hard journey, and he's wonderful to support me along the way. My coach, Boyd Exell, he’s an incredible horseman who has taught me so much. And our crew, the grooms, Taron ‘Taz’ Lester and Amber Lester, who have done a really great job keeping the horses in excellent shape for me to do what I need to succeed.”
“I am involved in a program called Horses and Hope to promote awareness of breast cancer and the importance of screening for women in the horse industry, who always seem to our care of their horses in front of themselves. So this is on my marathon carriage.”
"It's really important to me to make the U.S. Team for WEG not once, but twice. I hope I can inspire other women to take up the sport because it's a great sport. It's great for women to realize that this sport doesn't have to be a barrier to them."
Be sure to watch the U.S. Combined Driving Team September 21-23, 2018.