Pleasure Driving with Kayla Benson (Q/A)

A brief interview with Kayla Benson about the excitement of pleasure driving and how she discovered this unlikely discipline.

Kayla Benson

Interviewee

Dec. 6th, 2023

Date

This year’s Germantown Charity Queen is Kayla Benson, an English rider from Memphis with a myriad of skills in her tool belt, more specifically, pleasure driving. When she gets to the barn to drive, she dusts off her carriage and gets her tack together. Compared to typical English tack, the equipment for carriage driving is much more complicated. She gathers both harnesses on her arm and throws the reins over her shoulder.

“I’m lucky he’s such a small pony because I can carry everything in one trip,” Benson said.

Her mount’s name is Crilban Viscount of Shale, more affectionately known as Count. Together, they typically enter in the pleasure driving exhibitions where they show their horse at the walk, trot, and canter at the Nashoba Carriage Classic every October. At the Germantown Charity Horse Show, there are unique driving classes offered that wouldn’t always appear at a Nashoba show. In 2022, Benson and Count entered into the Carriage Scurry Race class, earning second place, and the Carriage Barrel Racing class, earning third place.

Watch the video documentary here.

Eli Thompson: Tell me about yourself.

Kayla Benson: I’m Kayla, I’m 22-years-old. I am a senior at Ole Miss currently, I’m a marketing and sales student. So, yeah, that’s my whole focus right now, that and riding horses. It’s all I do!

ET: Tell me your riding journey, and where it involves carriage driving.

KB: So, I’ve been riding my whole life, my mom and my aunt grew up riding so as soon as I could hold my head up they had me on a horse. I started in the hunter/jumper world, that’s what I still do. I guess I started carriage driving in 2015-2016, sometime around there. Theres a couple other people around here who drive and one of my friends used to have a horse that she drove downtown and then ended up buying and bringing him down here. She did all the Nashoba Carriage Show and Charity and stuff, and she was like “Well you should do this and do the junior drivers with him.” I think I drove two or three times and then went and did the junior class at the charity. It was just something that was really fun.

Benson is getting ready to begin her drive on Count. Occasionally, he is used in lessons with little kids, but he much prefers driving.

KB: I didn’t do a lot of driving for several years because I didn’t have a horse. Then, Rose Marie bought a little pony who knew how to drive. So now, he’s my main pony that I drive. I take him to all the shows, and I’ve been driving him for like two years now.

ET: Who is Rose Marie?

KB: Rose Marie and Trey Lawson, Trey is her son, and they own Oak View.

ET: What inspired you to start carriage driving?

KB: I mean, really, it was kind of an unexpected thing. My friend was like, “You should do this, we need more juniors driving!” She had me in all her clothes and all kind of stuff. It ended up being something that was really fun. I’m not super competitive about it, it’s just for fun for me. Obviously, with the hunter/jumper stuff, that is my focus.

ET: Do you think the popularity for carriage driving has increased since you started?

Count is warming up, practicing all different lengths of his trot to get loosened up. Benson does not usually drive him to condition him, instead, she will ride him to keep him in shape. When she does drive, she may have a competition coming up.

KB: I would say so, it definitely seems like we have more entries at the shows. Around here at Oak View, it’s gotten a little less popular because I’m the only one around here who drives. We have the Nashoba Carriage Association in Germantown, it has grown. We have a lot of people from middle Tennessee and further south in Mississippi who have joined. I think it has definitely gotten bigger in the Memphis area, just not at Oak View.

ET: What makes driving unique and/or challenging?

KB: It is definitely very different from riding. Whenever I take lessons with my trainer Joanna, she’s always like, “You’ve got these bad habits,” that are normal for when you’re riding, but very different for when you’re driving. So, I think that is the challenging part for me, is I’ve ridden for so long that I have the habits of like, “I wanna turn left, I’m supposed to do this.” Well, that’s not how it works in a carriage, it’s very different.

ET: How does it compare to other riding styles and disciplines?

KB: It’s different, but at the same time it’s not. I feel like my experience in riding has helped me in driving. I picked it up really quick. I think I drove maybe three times before I went to a show and ended up being the junior driver champion. I think it’s similar the different gaits that we have to do in the rail classes. You have a slow trot, a working trot, a strong trot. I feel like I’m able to gauge those better and show them off a little bit better because I’ve ridden it and I know what it feels like.

Driving has many different components from riding. While driving, Benson gives commands to Count, "Swing left, swing right." Her whip, also, acts as a guide and an extension of the rein.