The Marathon – Not Every Paddock Needs a Visit

Carriage driving has never stood still. Our carriages have changed, our safety equipment has changed, our rules have changed and the way we train and condition our horses has changed. Perhaps one of the biggest changes of all, however, has been in the marathon. As our sport continues to evolve, it is worth reflecting not only on how far we have come, but also on what that evolution might mean for the way we design and officiate our marathon courses in the future.

For those of us who have been involved in carriage driving for a long time, there is plenty to reminisce about when we talk about the marathons of years gone by. They really were marathons. At one time a full marathon could comprise five separate sections and cover close to 30 kilometres. There were long stretches of track, compulsory paces, very different expectations around course viewing and, in earlier years, considerably less information available to competitors about exactly what lay ahead. There were no reduced distances for smaller equines and little consideration of whether a young, green or novice horse might benefit from a shorter introduction to the discipline.

What we now call Marathon Obstacles were generally known as hazards, and many were very different from those we increasingly see internationally today. Natural terrain played a major part in their design. They could be big, open and very fast, with momentum counting for a lot. There was no shortage of spectacular driving, although at times the spectacle came for the wrong reasons as well. The combination of speed, terrain, the carriages and safety equipment available at the time, and the nature of some of the obstacles meant that accidents were part of the sport in a way that we would be much less prepared to accept today.

None of that means those marathons were somehow wrong. They were part of the development of combined driving, and many of us have wonderful memories of them. They taught us a huge amount about fitness, stamina, pace, horsemanship and managing a horse across a long competition. But we also learned from them, and as a result our sport changed.

Evolution has always been part of driving

Sometimes it is tempting to look at changes to our sport and see them as a departure from tradition. In reality, carriage driving has continually evolved. Our marathon carriages bear little resemblance to those used several decades ago. Safety equipment has developed enormously. Obstacle construction has changed. The rules surrounding welfare and dangerous driving have developed, we now provide significantly more information to competitors, courses are inspected differently, and the way we prepare horses has evolved.

So it should not really surprise us that the marathon course itself is continuing to evolve as well. Internationally, the trend has increasingly been towards concentrating the marathon into a shorter, more purposeful competition phase rather than retaining distance simply for distance's sake.

The FEI's current design principle for Section B, which is the international equivalent of what New Zealand still calls Section E, is particularly interesting. The guidance is approximately one kilometre of Section B for each Marathon Obstacle. That gives us a useful point of comparison. At a standard New Zealand CDT we would commonly have around five Marathon Obstacles, so rather than automatically looking for eight, ten or more kilometres of available countryside, a modern starting point could be a course somewhere in the vicinity of five kilometres. At our National Championships, where we would commonly expect seven Marathon Obstacles, the same principle suggests something in the vicinity of seven kilometres.

Of course, these are not numbers that need to be applied rigidly. Every venue is different, and terrain, footing, access, recovery between obstacles and safety all need to be considered. But it changes the question we ask when designing the course. Rather than asking how much of a property we can use, perhaps the better question is how much track we actually need to create the right test.

What are we actually trying to test?

The marathon must still test fitness and stamina. It should still reward a properly conditioned horse, it should still be exciting, and there should absolutely still be a place for natural terrain, water, hills and the features that give individual venues their character. But a modern marathon can test those things without recreating the endurance element of a five-section, 27-kilometre marathon.

Increasingly, the real competitive questions are being asked in the Marathon Obstacles themselves, and those questions are becoming much more technical. Technical, however, should not simply mean tight. A good technical obstacle does not need to consist of a collection of posts positioned as closely together as possible. The cleverness lies in the lines and in the decisions available to the driver.

A driver might have a very short route available, but taking it successfully requires the horse to arrive balanced and correctly positioned. Another route may add several metres but flow beautifully. A gate that appears straightforward in isolation might become difficult because the driver must already be thinking about the line required for the following gate. In other words, the decision begins several movements before the actual question.

That is where modern technical driving becomes interesting. It asks for balance, accuracy, judgement, preparation and route selection, and it creates an opportunity for a driver to make a decision that suits the horse they are driving. International course designers have increasingly spoken about the value of creating both shorter and longer route options while still producing a course that is horse-friendly, challenging and exciting for spectators.

Perhaps one of the simplest ways of describing the change is that speed should increasingly be the result of good driving rather than the substitute for it. The very best combinations will still be breathtakingly fast, but they are fast because they arrive in the right place, in the right balance and on the right line.

The kilometres between the obstacles matter too

If the Marathon Obstacles are becoming more deliberate, perhaps we should apply the same thinking to the track connecting them. Historically, it was understandable that course designers looked for long tracks and significant terrain because that was the nature of the marathon being designed. Today we have an opportunity to think differently.

Does that additional kilometre improve the competition? Does that steep piece of ground add a worthwhile test? Does sending competitors around the back of another paddock serve a real purpose? Sometimes the answer will absolutely be yes, but sometimes the answer might be no. That distinction is important because a shorter marathon is not automatically an easier marathon, just as a longer marathon is not automatically a better one.

What matters is whether every part of the course contributes appropriately to the test. The modern philosophy of approximately one kilometre per Marathon Obstacle gives us a much more deliberate relationship between distance and the number of competitive questions being asked.

Could our marathon become more centralised?

This is where things become particularly interesting for New Zealand. Instead of imagining Section E as a single long journey around a property, we have been increasingly encouraging our course builders to think about developing track systems made up of central routes, loops and interconnected sections.

That might mean a central track with a number of loops coming from it, several linked circuits, or a track that repeatedly returns competitors towards a central area before sending them to the next part of the course. The exact layout will always depend on the venue, but the underlying philosophy is more important than the shape. The aim is to bring more of the activity together.

Imagine a five-MO CDT where the majority of the competitive action occurs within a relatively compact area. A combination leaves one Marathon Obstacle, travels along a defined track, perhaps completes a loop, and reappears within sight of the central part of the venue before entering the next obstacle. Several obstacles might be visible from one general area, and the result is very different from a marathon where the turnout disappears across the farm and reappears several minutes later.

This approach is already reflected in major international venues. At Lähden in Germany, for example, Marathon Obstacles are centrally located so spectators can experience the action without having to walk long distances between viewing areas. International designers have also spoken about considering not only the quality of each obstacle but its location within the overall course, including accessibility and visibility for the public.

That is a very different course-building philosophy from simply trying to find enough land to fit a marathon onto.

But do we actually have spectators?

This is a fair question, because the reality is that most New Zealand CDT events currently attract relatively few spectators outside competitors, their families, supporters and others already involved in carriage driving.

It would therefore be easy to say that designing courses with spectators in mind is solving a problem we do not have. I think the opposite may be true.

If we want more people to watch carriage driving, become interested in carriage driving and perhaps ultimately participate in it, then we have to start creating events that are easier and more interesting for people to watch. We cannot wait until we have hundreds of spectators before we start thinking about the spectator experience. We have to improve the experience first if we ever hope to attract them.

Carriage driving actually has an enormous advantage in this regard. Marathon is genuinely exciting. There are horses travelling at speed, grooms working on the back of the carriage, water, noise, close competition, split-second route decisions and drivers choosing completely different ways through the same obstacle. To someone seeing the sport for the first time, it can be an impressive spectacle.

The difficulty is that historically we have often spread that spectacle across several kilometres.

A visitor might watch a combination negotiate one Marathon Obstacle and then watch it disappear into the distance. Unless they know the property and understand how marathon works, they may have little idea where that competitor is going next or where they should go to see them again.

A centralised track system begins to change that. If people can stand in one general area and see parts of several Marathon Obstacles, watch competitors moving along the connecting track and understand where they are going next, the sport becomes much easier to follow. Commentary can follow a combination through the course, live results can be available nearby, and spectators can begin comparing different drivers' routes and techniques.

That also gives us somewhere to create atmosphere. Food, trade stands, sponsors, commentary, results and social areas can be concentrated around the same part of the venue. Suddenly the marathon becomes more than a course spread around a farm; it begins to feel like an event.

None of that guarantees that hundreds of people will suddenly turn up to a New Zealand CDT. Building an audience takes time. But if growing our sport is genuinely one of our objectives, spectator experience needs to become part of our thinking rather than something we consider only after the course has been built.

Perhaps we need to think beyond the stand-alone CDT

There may, however, be an even bigger opportunity here.

Perhaps growing an audience for carriage driving is not simply about convincing more members of the public to attend a stand-alone CDT. Perhaps we also need to think much more creatively about where and alongside whom we run our events.

International equestrian sport gives us some very successful examples of this. CHIO Aachen is perhaps one of the best known. Driving sits alongside show jumping, dressage, eventing, vaulting and para dressage as part of one enormous equestrian festival, which attracts around 350,000 visitors. Royal Windsor Horse Show similarly combines international carriage driving with show jumping, showing, endurance and a wide programme of equestrian displays and entertainment.

Obviously New Zealand carriage driving is not about to recreate Aachen or Royal Windsor, nor do we need to. But the principle behind those events is worth thinking about.

People who arrive to watch one equestrian discipline are exposed to another.

Four-in-hand World Champion Bram Chardon made exactly that point when discussing Aachen in 2026. He noted that bringing the disciplines together was good for the visibility of driving because people who had originally come for show jumping might stay and watch the driving as well. In other words, driving gained access to an audience that it did not have to attract to the venue by itself.

That should give us something to ponder in New Zealand.

Could a CDT operate alongside another equestrian event? Could marathon be incorporated into a larger equestrian weekend? Could we work more closely with jumping, dressage, eventing, showing, breed societies, working equitation or other disciplines to create events where several forms of equestrian sport are happening at the same venue?

Not every event would suit that model and there would obviously be challenges around arenas, parking, timetabling, safety and sharing facilities. But perhaps the first question should not always be why it would be difficult. Perhaps we need to start by asking what might be possible.

There could be significant advantages for everyone involved. Venue costs and infrastructure might be shared. Food vendors and trade stands have a larger potential audience. Sponsors gain exposure to more people. The event becomes more attractive to families because there is more to see. Competitors from one discipline are exposed to another and, importantly for a relatively small sport such as ours, carriage driving gains access to people who would probably never have made the decision to attend a CDT by itself.

We should not underestimate that last point.

Most people who become involved in carriage driving were exposed to it somehow. Someone showed them, invited them, demonstrated it, or they happened to see it and thought, I would like to try that. If our sport takes place almost entirely behind the gates of stand-alone events attended by people who already drive, the opportunities for those accidental introductions become very limited.

Multi-discipline events create more of those opportunities.

And a centralised marathon course fits particularly well into that thinking. If our Marathon Obstacles and track are concentrated in one part of a venue, marathon becomes much easier to include within a larger equestrian event. We require less land, spectators can remain within an event precinct, other disciplines can continue elsewhere on the venue, and carriage driving can provide a particularly exciting piece of the day's entertainment.

Perhaps this is where course design and sport development begin to overlap.

The way we build our marathon courses can either restrict us to the traditional model of a large stand-alone event spread across a substantial property, or it can give us the flexibility to take carriage driving into different venues and put it in front of different audiences.

There are practical benefits as well

A more compact track is not only about entertainment. There can be significant organisational and safety advantages too.

Maintaining five kilometres of suitable track is very different from maintaining ten or fifteen. Officials can have better oversight of the course, radio communication becomes easier, veterinary and emergency access can be improved, fewer remote parts of the property need to be staffed, and footing can be concentrated and maintained more effectively.

Course crossings can potentially be reduced and spectators can be kept within areas specifically designed for them rather than moving throughout the competition track trying to find the next obstacle.

None of those things remove the inherent risks of marathon. We are still driving horses and carriages at speed. But there is an important distinction between creating sporting difficulty and simply creating greater exposure to risk. A clever technical question tests driving, while unnecessarily difficult terrain travelled at speed may simply increase the consequences when something goes wrong.

Modern course design should recognise the difference.

And perhaps it creates another opportunity

There is another advantage to a looped track system that may be particularly valuable for the future of New Zealand driving. It gives us flexibility.

Our standard CDT may have five Marathon Obstacles and our Nationals may have seven, but does every horse entering our sport need to start by completing all five? Perhaps not.

A well-designed track system could make it relatively simple to create a future young or green horse division. For example, a developing horse might complete three Marathon Obstacles and approximately three kilometres of Section E. Another level might complete four, established combinations complete the normal five, and at championship level seven.

The same basic venue and much of the same infrastructure can be used. The difference is the workload and complexity appropriate to the horse's stage of development. That is not about making marathon easy; it is about creating a pathway.

A young horse still learns to warm up correctly, leave the start and travel at the required pace. It learns to settle between obstacles and experiences officials, spectators and the atmosphere of competition. It learns to enter a Marathon Obstacle, negotiate it and then recover before the next one. But perhaps it does that three times before we ask it to do it five times.

There is a lot to like about that concept from both a training and horse-welfare perspective. We progressively school our dressage horses and progressively school our cones horses, so there is no reason we cannot progressively educate our marathon horses as well.

Portable and adaptable obstacle construction can help with this too. Modern obstacle systems can be altered for developing horses or lower-level drivers rather than permanently locking a venue into one configuration.

This is where our officials become important

Change does not happen simply because the rules permit it. Course Designers, Technical Delegates and Presidents of Ground Jury all have an important role in determining what our version of modern marathon looks like.

Sometimes that means being prepared to say no, not aggressively and not because everything done previously was wrong, but because part of being an official is looking beyond whether something is technically permitted and considering whether it produces the right competition.

Perhaps we do not need another two kilometres simply because another paddock is available. Perhaps we do not need to incorporate a particularly difficult hill merely because we used it fifteen years ago. Perhaps an obstacle does not become better simply because it can be driven faster. Perhaps we can move an obstacle closer to the central event area rather than hiding it on the far side of the property.

Likewise, sometimes the answer also needs to be no because a design has gone too far in the other direction. Modern does not automatically mean small, tight and complicated. If a line does not flow, if the horse is not given a fair opportunity to understand what is being asked, or if an obstacle has become unnecessarily restrictive, then that deserves just as much scrutiny.

The Course Designer is responsible for designing the test, the Technical Delegate has an important oversight role, and the Ground Jury carries responsibility for the competition itself. That relationship should encourage discussion and constructive challenge. Good officials should not simply ask whether something complies with the rule book. They should also ask what sort of driving the course will reward, whether it works for horses, whether it works for the event and increasingly, perhaps, whether it helps us present our sport well.

We should not be afraid to move forward

There can sometimes be a tendency in a small sport to reproduce what we already know. Course Designers build the type of obstacles they drove, Technical Delegates inspect the type of courses they previously officiated, and competitors become comfortable with what they regularly encounter. Before long, familiarity can become tradition.

Tradition has enormous value, but tradition and evolution are not opposites.

The long, multi-section marathon has an important place in the history of combined driving. It helped create the sport we enjoy today, and what we learned from those marathons contributed to the rules, equipment, training and course-design principles we now have.

The next stage in that evolution may be about concentration rather than distance. It may be interconnected tracks and loops, Marathon Obstacles clustered around spectator areas, more technical route choices and several levels of competition sharing the same infrastructure. It may give us an opportunity to introduce a young or green horse marathon class, take our sport into venues we might previously have thought unsuitable and perhaps run alongside other equestrian disciplines rather than always operating entirely on our own.

Importantly, none of this means removing what makes marathon special. Keep the water, keep the hills where they add something, keep the speed and keep the natural terrain. Keep that wonderful moment when a well-trained turnout enters an obstacle and everything happens exactly as the driver planned.

But let us be deliberate about why every part of the course is there.

The challenge for those of us involved in designing, approving and building our courses is not simply to preserve the marathon we remember. It is to take everything those marathons taught us and use it to build the next version of our sport: a marathon that tests fitness without unnecessary kilometres, rewards technical driving without becoming unnecessarily tight, gives horses fair choices, is safer and more manageable to run, provides a pathway for developing horses, gives us opportunities to work alongside the wider equestrian community and brings new people into the middle of the action rather than asking them to chase it around the countryside.

Perhaps the best modern marathon is not one where we ask how far we can send them. Perhaps it is one where we ask how much good driving—and how much opportunity for our sport—we can fit into the course we have.

Perhaps the future of marathon is not about visiting every paddock. It is about making the most of the course we have. That seems a very worthwhile direction for our sport.