By Frank DeLoache
Salisbury Post
Their club name is Whips and Wheels, but those aren’t instruments of torture.
Club members love a more historic mode of transportation ó horse and carriage ó and love to get together for fun competition.
They’re doing that next Sunday, Feb. 17, and they’re inviting members of the community to come out and watch and bring a picnic lunch with them on Hurley School Road, east of Salisbury.
Faith Bradshaw, president of the Whips and Wheels Driving Club, said the event will last from 10 a.m. to roughly 3 p.m. and feature:
– A morning “trace pace” contest in which owners take their team on a prescribed trail while completing assigned tasks.
– Bring-your-own picnic lunches on the site of the competition, where visitors can talk to club members and learn about their horses and equipment.
– An afternoon obstacle course competition that will be easier for spectators to follow, Bradshaw said.
She explained that each team will face the same tasks, such as running over an egg with either the wheels of the carriage or the horses’ hooves.
“It’s not as easy as you might think,” Bradshaw said.
Carriage competitors will compete in one of three categories: pairs of horses, single horses and ponies.
Bradshaw said the horse-and-carriage club has about 40 members in the Salisbury-Mocksville area, and she expects the Feb. 17 competition to draw other carriage owners from as far east as Raleigh and as far west as Tryon.
This is a fun competition, Bradshaw emphasized, “where people and the horses can play.”
The event takes place in a field on Hurley School Road. If you turn onto Hurley School Road from U.S. 70, the field is a mile away, just past Salisbury’s Community Park, on the right. If you turn onto Hurley School Road from Sherrills Ford Road, you drive 2.6 miles and look for the field on the left, just before the Community Park. The club will have a big sign about the event.
Bradshaw, a Salisbury resident, welcomes calls from people who want more information about the club. Call her at 704-213-7076.