WORLD champion carriage driver, Boyd Exell made the trip down to the south-west for a carriage driving clinic at Warrayure which was organised by local carriage driver, Elizabeth Lawrence, and attracted drivers from all over the country.

Exell is based in the Netherlands but is originally from New South Wales, is a six-time gold medallist and nine-time World Cup Indoor Driving Champion and described as the world’s most decorated equestrian competitor.

He has been running clinics over four days with yesterday being the last, each day has included 13 sessions with drivers who have made the trek from all over Australia to learn from the nation’s best.

Exell said it had been great to come down for the four-day clinic and was thankful to all the people who made the event so successful.

“Elizabeth Lawrence here has done a fantastic job; at the end of the day, it’s a training clinic and they’re going out of their way to make it look like a competition,” he told The Spectator.

“There’s people coming from as far as New Zealand, Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria here … the standard of turnouts have been very good.

“The quality of the horses has been good, and everybody is working together trying to learn from each other’s lessons as well.”

The world champion has enjoyed being back in Australia for a short time before he was to make his way to France to try and win another World Cup Indoor Driving Championship.

Exell was amazed at the distance some of the attendees had travelled and said it was a great sign for carriage driving as a sport.

“I like to support the driving in Australia, the membership of driving in Australia is quite big … if you live in Europe all the time, people just see you through the internet and papers and don’t get the personal contact,” he said.

“It goes to show just how far people are prepared to travel … they’re screaming out for more information and knowledge.”

 He has trained in America, France, Sweden, Germany and England where he was based for 25 years, but said he would consider coming back to the south-west for clinics.

“Of course (I’d consider coming back here), absolutely … there’s some stalwarts of driving, but it’s also nice to see young blood and new blood coming through,” he said.

Event director, Peter Lee said it had been great to get someone as high profile as Exell and the feedback from the clinic had been great.

“The knowledge that he’s imparting on drivers and fence sitters has been great, we’ve been fortunate to be able to get him down here,” he said.

“Boyd is the attraction and hopefully we could get him to come again next year or the year after, he leaves here (this) afternoon … and over to Germany for a world cup event.

Lee said this was the first carriage driving clinic down in the region and the set-up had allowed all participants to have a very international feel.

“This is obviously great for the Western District to have someone of Boyd’s profile to come out here … it’s a big shot in the arm for Hamilton and other towns around,” he said.

Local carriage driver, Elizabeth Lawrence, set up the courses on her property and was the personal connection that secured Exell’s services here in Hamilton.

“The clinic has run really well … we’ve tried to give it an international feel and we’ve had the whole community involved, the shire has brought marquees out and different clubs have come to help,” she said.

“Our National Driving Society has given money for the children to come and have lessons with Boyd, we are trying to encourage the younger generation to get involved in the sport.”

Exell has had a microphone on throughout the four-day clinic, which has allowed other spectators and participants to gain valuable knowledge and insight while other lessons are on.

“People are coming to fence sit which means be a spectator … we’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of people, the phone hasn’t stopped, we are having at least 50 people per day coming to watch,” she said.

“People have very much enjoyed coming to Hamilton so we hope to promote the area, the driving clinic and we would love it if he (Exell) used this as his training camp every year, so we are certainly encouraging that.”