Ever since we came north after spending the winter in Southern Pines, I’ve been in a little bit of a funk. Maybe I’m missing the close (geographically speaking) driving community and all their activities. The yo-yoing stock market is making me slightly nauseous. Maybe it’s partly because our 15-year-old Corgi Badger probably won’t be with us much longer. So as I was sitting at my computer trying to find an inspiration for this column, I decided to take a walk.

On my own, I discovered that I came up with some of my best journalistic ideas while on a walk. It wasn’t until recently that I learned from Dr. Janeane Reagan, who often writes a column for Driving Digest called “Training the Brain,” that walking actually does trigger something in the brain that helps the writing process.

So out the door I went, telling my husband that I was going for a “Thinking Walk.” Nothing for about half a kilometer, and then voila! Some of the random thoughts that had been floating around in my head started to come together like clumps of oil on a Louisiana beach.

The World Equestrian Games are in the forefront of the equestrian world this year, and rightfully so. It’s unlikely that anything so huge will happen in this country anytime soon. The last thing—and it doesn’t even compare because it was mostly national in scope and didn’t involve nearly as many horses—was Equitana USA which lasted a few short years in the 90s before outfits like Equine Affaire did essentially the same thing, only regionally and much cheaper for the exhibitor.

But WEG wasn’t what was inspiring me on this day. It was our young drivers. Teenagers who have decided that driving their horses and ponies is more fun than jumping fences, flirting with the opposite sex or driving cars. Yes, they are the smallest of the driving demographic. But let’s face, it, few people get truly excited about a group of middle age women drivers (the largest demographic). These kids aren’t just dinking around at the Training Level. They started there, of course. Take Jacob Arnold—he’s been driving his single horse at the Advanced Level this year, and has done quite well. Most recently he drove Claire Reid’s four-in-hand of Welsh ponies at a pleasure show and won a championship. It does take a village, as I’m sure his parents will attest. Maggie Sullivan is not only winning at the Intermediate level, but she’s beating her elders with a Fjord! Jan Jan Hamilton has also been successful at the Intermediate level, often competing against her own mother. Brianna Ek is driving her grandmother’s four-in-hand of ponies. Most of these efforts are family affairs and that in itself is inspiring. What’s even more exciting is reading the names of once juniors, now young adults whose names are still on the top of the results sheets:  Breanna Sheahan, Lindsay Nevitt, Valerie Dingman, and others to whom I apologize for omitting your names.

Combined driving has its critics, but it does provide the speed, excitement, and other elements that attract teenagers. There is time in later years to become interested in the detail of pleasure driving and the social appeal of coaching and Four-in-Hand Club driving. Both Tucker Johnson and Chester Weber, now flirting with middle age, have shown they can enjoy both activities.

As I made the turn to head home, I was able to stop thinking and start enjoying the scenery:  the cloudless blue sky meeting the endless horizon of Lake Huron, the lake freighter heading north to fill with iron ore in Wisconsin. The lilacs are at their peak, the breeze off the lake brings their sweet perfume to me. Wild columbine, jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, and the rat-ta-tat of a piliated woodpecker off in the cedar swamp. Next week it will all be different. Live in the moment.