A four-in-hand is a team of four horses pulling a carriage, coach or other horse-drawn vehicle. [1] Today, four-in-hand driving is the top division of combined driving in equestrian sports; other divisions are for a single horse or a pair. One of the international events featuring only four-in-hand teams is the FEI World Cup Driving series.
In Europe, after public post coaches and mail coaches were largely supplanted by railroad travel, driving large private coaches drawn by four horses became a popular sporting activity of the rich, [2] and driving clubs were formed. England's Four-In-Hand Driving Club was formed in 1856. Membership was limited to thirty and they all drove private coaches known as park drags made on the pattern of the old Post Office mail coaches but luxuriously finished and outfitted. A new group called the Coaching Club was formed in 1870 for those unable to join the club of 30. Other enthusiasts revived old coaching routes and took paying passengers. [2] Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt championed coaching in America, and he and several other of his contemporaries engaged in public coaching for hire in America and England. [3]
T. Bigelow Lawrence of Boston owned America's first locally built park drag in 1860. Leonard Jerome took to driving coaches with six and eight horse teams to go to watch horse races. New York's Coaching Club was formed in 1875. [2]
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, known as Toulouse-Lautrec, was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times.
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are drawn by six horses.
A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping or, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. Two-wheeled carriages are usually owner-driven.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport but are still in use today.
A postilion or postillion is a person who guides a horse-drawn coach or post chaise while mounted on the horse or one of a pair of horses. By contrast, a coachman controls the horses from the vehicle itself.
Fairman Rogers was an American civil engineer, educator and equestrian. He worked as a professor of civil engineering at the University of Pennsylvania from 1855 to 1871 and as a trustee from 1871 to 1886. He was one of the founders of the Department of Mines, Arts and Manufactures and co-founded the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University.
Morven Park is a 1,000-acre historic estate and horse park in Leesburg, Virginia, United States. Located on the grounds are the Morven Park Mansion, the Winmill Carriage Museum, formal boxwood gardens, miles of hiking and riding trails, and athletic fields. The park is also home to the Museum of Hounds and Hunting of North America with displays of art, artifacts and memorabilia about the sport of foxhunting.
Horses have appeared in works of art throughout history, frequently as depictions of the horse in battle. The horse appears less frequently in modern art, partly because the horse is no longer significant either as a mode of transportation or as an implement of war. Most modern representations are of famous contemporary horses, artwork associated with horse racing, or artwork associated with the historic cowboy or Native American tradition of the American West. In the United Kingdom, depictions of fox hunting and nostalgic rural scenes involving horses continue to be made.
The four-in-hand mail coach driving was one of five equestrian competitions held in late May and early June 1900 at the International Horse Show in Paris. The event was part of the Exposition Universelle, and later classified as part of the 1900 Summer Olympics. There were 31 entrants listed for the event; all 28 of them are known by name. The event was won by the team of Georges Nagelmackers of Belgium. The teams of Léon Thome and Jean de Neuflize, both of France, were classified in second and third place respectively.
Driving, when applied to horses, ponies, mules, or donkeys, is a broad term for hitching equines to a wagon, carriage, cart, sleigh, or other horse-drawn vehicle by means of a harness and working them in this way. It encompasses a wide range of activities from pleasure driving, to harness racing, to farm work, horse shows, and even international combined driving.
A coach is a large, closed, four-wheeled, passenger-carrying vehicle or carriage usually drawn by two or more horses controlled by a coachman, a postilion, or both. A coach has doors in its sides and a front and a back seat inside. The driver has a raised seat in front of the carriage to allow better vision. It is often called a box, box seat, or coach box. There are many types of coaches depending on the vehicle's purpose.
The Remington Carriage Museum is located in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. Opened in 1993, and the largest of its kind in the world, the Remington Carriage Museum displays more than 240 carriages.
The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand is an 1879–80 painting by the American painter Thomas Eakins. It shows Fairman Rogers driving a coaching party in his four-in-hand carriage through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. It is thought to be the first painting to examine precisely, through systematic photographic analysis, how horses move.
Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a poster by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It is a colour lithograph from 1891, probably printed in about 3,000 copies, advertising the famous dancers La Goulue and "No-Bones" Valentin, and the new Paris dance hall Moulin Rouge. Although most examples were pasted as advertising posters and lost, surviving examples are in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and many other institutions.
James Lynwood Palmer (1868–1941) was an English painter who specialised in painting race-horses, his characteristic style showing them as nervous and highly-strung, often depicted within a background of a dramatic landscape. His success as a leading equestrian portrait painter of the first half of the twentieth century is represented by around eight hundred paintings that were commissioned by clients, almost exclusively from private patrons, who included: William Cavendish-Bentinck, 6th Duke of Portland (1857–1943) (notably The Duke of Portland's stallions at Welbeck Stud, Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick and King George V. He rarely exhibited his work to the public.
The Coaching Club was formed in New York City in 1875 to encourage four-in-hand driving in America. "Requisite for membership was the ability to handle a coach and four horses with a single group of reins."
Count Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec Driving His Mail-Coach is a painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec of his father, a great lover of horses recognisable by his beard, completed in 1881 at the age of only 17 years. It is now in the Petit Palais in Paris.
A state coach, also known as a gala coach, is a highly decorative ceremonial coach used in Europe by a monarch or head of state on state occasions. A four-wheeled vehicle for four passengers, it may be drawn at a walk by six or more horses with postilions, or be driven by two or more horses. The term is also used to indicate a formal town coach used by nobility and the wealthy for formal occasions, drawn by a pair of matching horses.
The Carriage Association of America (CAA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history and traditions of carriage driving, and the preservation and restoration of horse-drawn carriages and sleighs. It is headquartered at the Kentucky Horse Park along with its sister organization, the Carriage Museum of America (CMA).