Riding high: Horse-drawn carriages make a comeback
U.F. resident participates in new Monmouth Coaching Invitational
BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer

PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL DENVER, OF EQUI-PHOTO Joe Jennings, of Allentown, drives his team of horses on a practice run through Locust with some friends in preparation for a carriage drive from Locust to Monmouth Park in Oceanport, which will take place Aug. 25.

UPPER FREEHOLD - Joe Jennings' love of antique road coaches began as a kid in the 1950s when he first saw them at an exhibition in Oceanport's Monmouth Park.

Although he had driven pleasure horses before, it wasn't until 1986 that coaches started to reappear in the driving world and he first tried his hand at driving the antique vehicles.

For Jennings, riding in a coach is an ideal way to see the countryside.

"You see so much more up there," he said, noting that there are no radios and few other distractions from the scenery.

"It's peaceful, serene," he said. "The world looks different from 10 feet off the ground."

Jennings, the owner of Walnford Stud Farm, a thoroughbred breeding farm in Upper Freehold, recently presented the idea of bringing antique road coaches back to Monmouth Park for the New Jersey Thoroughbred Festival on Aug. 26. Thus, the Monmouth Coaching Invitational portion of the festival was born.

The Monmouth Coaching Invitational will celebrate the equine industry in Monmouth County while benefiting the New Bolton Veterinary Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; ReRun Inc., an organization dedicated to finding second careers for former racehorses; and the Monmouth Conservation Foundation (MCF).

Jennings, whose farm is permanently preserved, said the MCF has done so much to preserve horse farms in the county.

MCF Executive Director Adele Keller called the area coach drives that are a part of the invitational a great way to underscore the importance of preservation.

"Saturday's drive is through the Navesink/Highlands Greenway area," Keller said. "We have worked for years to save many properties in this densely builtout area."

Jennings will drive his 1895 private road coach, which originally belonged to a member of the Philadelphia Coaching Club, in the invitational. His four hackneys, which Jennings described as traditional coach horses, will pull the vehicle.

Jennings said it will be great during the invitational to bring coaching back to the Rumson area, which served as a hotbed for the sport at the turn of the century. Many former carriage houses still line Navesink River Road in Middletown and River Road in Rumson, he said.

Coaching played a large role in the tristate area's history and was partially responsible for the creation of New York City's Central Park, according to Jennings. The wealthiest families in the area, such as the Vanderbilts, the Belmonts and the Havemeyers, wanted a place to drive their coaches and four-in-hands, a reference to the way reins are rigged so that a single driver can steer four horses at a time, with the horses arranged in two pairs, one behind the other.

Jennings added that Alfred Vanderbilt, who died on the Lusitania in 1915, was actually en route to Europe for coaching at the time of his death.

Although coaching became a sport of the elite, it had very practical roots, according to Jennings. Coaching started as a means of transportation in the 1500s, he said, and in 1786 the first mail coach run was organized in England.

"It brought coaching to the forefront of communication," Jennings said, adding that the mode of transport enabled a letter to cross the country in five days when it formerly took that long just to cross London.

Eventually, road systems were built to support the coaches, which thrived until the advent of the railroad in the 1850s, according to Jennings.

It wasn't until 1875 that prominent members of society started the New York Coaching Club. Also interested in horse racing, the club's members in 1894 formed the New York Jockey Club, the forerunner of the jockey club that regulates horse racing today, Jennings said.

New York's Brewster and Co. served as the area's top carriage makers of the day, Jennings said. After the carriage era ended, the company went on to make bodies for Rolls-Royce automobiles, he said.

Today, Jennings can't help but feel excited seeing the coaches' turnout with four horses.

"It brings back a different era," he said.

Antique road coaches will venture to the invitational from as far away as Florida, Jennings said.

On Friday, the event will feature a Rumson Coach Drive, beginning at 10 a.m. with a champagne stop at Copper Downs, the home of Avery and Christopher Brighton. Following that, an MCF benefit luncheon, cocktail party and concert will be held at the Two River Theater in Red Bank. The concert will feature the John Pizzarelli Quartet.

On Saturday, Aug. 25, the Middletown Coach Drive will be held at 5 p.m. with a champagne stop at Tower Hill Farm, the home of Kathy and Bud McConnell. At 6 p.m., the MCF will hold its 30th annual dinner dance at Aulde House, the preserved Ellis horse farm on Cooper Road in Middletown. Cocktails and a coachman horn-blowing demonstration will start at 6 p.m., with the call for dinner at 7:30 p.m.

On Sunday, Aug. 26, a Rumson/Little Silver/Oceanport Coach Drive is scheduled at 10 a.m. with a champagne stop at Scothigh Farm, the home of Nancy Mulheren. On this day, there will also be a parade of coaches at Monmouth Park in celebration of the New Jersey Thoroughbred Festival and a 1 p.m. luncheon in support of the New Bolton Veterinary Center.

For more information about the invitational, call the foundation at (732) 671-7000.