‘You just passed gate three, looking for gate four!” yells the navigator as the vehicle careens action-movie style — two wheels on the ground, two in the air — around the tight curve. The navigator hangs on precariously, leaning to the high side to balance the rig.

Sounds like a scene from a high-speed chase on the big screen, but it’s not. It’s Competitive Carriage Driving, and it’s the fastest growing equine sport in the world — a sport that requires coordination, driving skill, equine sense, athletic ability and guts.

Sixty-five-year-old Jean Stuard of Burleson should know; she’s been doing it for more than 20 years.

“I discovered carriage driving in the 1980s when my elderly mom got to where she couldn’t ride horses with me anymore,” Stuard said. “I thought the buggies would be fun for both of us.

So she bought a purebred Arabian mare, Coravaduz, a two-wheeled Meadowbrook cart and a harness.

“I took my mom out for a drive and we had a blast,” Stuard remembers. “She rode with me until she died at age 81. She even went to the competitions with me.”

Soon after Stuard purchased her first carriage, a friend invited her to attend a combined event competition. By the third day of the event, Stuard was hooked.

Now holding memberships in the American Driving Society, the North Texas Whips, the Houston Area Carriage Association and the Brazos Valley Driving and Riding Club, Stuard has maintained a strict training schedule of a minimum of three hours per day, five days a week for the past 20-odd years.

For most of those years, Stuard’s beloved Arabian, Coravaduz was in the traces.

“I got Corrie when she was just 8 years old,” Stuard said. “She was fast and she loved to run.”

Sadly, the mare passed away last year, but Stuard fondly remembers the races they enjoyed together. She especially enjoys reminiscing over one particular race.

“It was a race where they had literally hacked the marathon course out of a forest,” Stuard recalls. “Trees were nearly scraping both sides of the carriage. We were careening along at breakneck speed when suddenly, Corrie came to a screeching halt. We looked up and saw a cow standing in the middle of the road, and there weren’t supposed to be any cows on the course. My navigator was able to get off the back without getting scratched up too bad, and started saying, ‘Shoo, cow! Shoo, cow!’ It turned and trotted off to a wide spot just ahead, but when we came even with it, it bellowed and charged us! Turns out it was a bull, not a cow! I didn’t know that little mare could move so fast,” Stuard laughed.

Most of Stuard’s races do involve adventure of one sort or another. The courses are sometimes hilly, and each timed course involves a set of obstacles that must be successfully navigated.

Other than the marathon, the three-day competitions also include a dressage event and a cone (or skilled maneuvering) event.

Drivers participate at one of four skill levels — training, preliminary, intermediate or advanced — depending on their personal skill and the skill of their horse.

Stuard has recently replaced her beloved Corrie with a new mare, Miss Millennium (dubbed Millie), and together they compete in the Training division.

“I’m taking Millie along slowly so when we speed up she doesn’t freak out,” Stuard said. “It’s training, training, training. Horses don’t naturally pull a buggy. They have to be taught to keep their balance and hold themselves in a round frame. It doesn’t happen overnight. We have to help them develop muscles.”

With honors like winning their large pony class in the cones at the 2007 Drive Fest in Navasota and taking Best Overall in cones in the same competition in 2008, Miss Millennium seems to be well suited to increasing her difficulty level. The pony was also named Best Conditioned horse at the Plum Creek competition last year, an award decided by the official competition veterinarian.

Stuard, pleased with Miss Millennium’s progress, looks ahead to the Preliminary division next year, but she wants to ensure that Millie is completely ready before they take that step.

“As you go up from Training to Preliminary, you’re asking for increasingly difficult things, and going to Intermediate, you’re asking for even more,” she said. “Each level has its own degree of difficulty.”

The cones course competition, for example, consists of taking the horse and buggy through a set of cones, or gates, that have tennis balls balanced on top. Drivers receive a 5-second penalty for each tennis ball that falls. Stuard explained it takes two cones to make a gate, and the course consists of 20 gates. As an added challenge, the course may be on rough or hillside terrain, and the course is winding with offset gates and sharp curves. The clearance between the carriage wheels and the cones narrows with difficulty level. For example, at the Training level, there is a clearance of 10 inches between wheels and cones, but at the Advanced level, the clearance is three inches.

The cone course, in a three-day competition, always comes on the last day, with the purpose being to see if after the marathon the driver’s horse is still “supple, obedient and willing to go,” according to Stuard.

Competitions typically begin with the dressage event.

“In the dressage,” Stuard said, “it’s all finesse. You must do the exact pattern that the judges call for, and it must be done with the brilliance and precision that the judge wants to see. If you’re doing a 30-meter circle rather than the 20 [meter] that’s called for, you get dinged.”

The dressage is about refined maneuvers, and cones are about expertise and coordination, but the marathon is all about managed speed and skill. As with all carriage events, horse safety is primary.

The marathon has a three minute window of time which the winner must come in under.

“This is for the safety of the horse — you can run a horse to death,” Stuard explained. “It’s worse to come in too early than too late. You get more penalty points that way. If I ask my mare for 100 percent she’ll give it, if I ask for more, she’ll try, but that’s not necessarily in her best interest.”

Nevertheless, the race moves along at a swift pace, with Miss Millennium’s large pony class typically running at speeds of 13 kilometers per hour.

The up-to-10-mile course consists of between four and eight obstacle courses and a number of gates, all of which must be maneuvered through in a sequential order and in a predetermined direction. Each driver has a navigator who rides on the back of the carriage and assists the driver.

“The navigator helps give balance on sharp corners,” Stuard explained. “They are usually athletic people, and as you careen around the corner they’re often hanging over the other edge to keep your balance. They also keep track of obstacles and gates.

“When you’re driving, you don’t remember if you went through gate 7 or 12. They can also help you in the obstacles. They might say, ‘Don’t forget to turn left when you pass that stump.’”

In addition to the exciting three-day events, Stuard also attends other venues, so she has a variety of carriages and three other horses, besides Miss Millennium, who pull an Amish-made Mill Run Challenger that has removable “furniture,” or metal fittings, so the carriage can move faster for the marathon.

As an alternative large class pony, Stuard uses Puddin’, a pinto. Her 12-hands-high hackney pony, Johnny Reb, currently pulls a custom-made two-wheeler, but will pull a wicker governess’ cart next year, once Stuard has completed restoration of the circa 1800s buggy. She plans to use the cart for pleasure driving competition, where impressing the judges with your cart is essential.

And impressing the judges is exactly what Stuard plans to do with her newest pony, a VSE, or very small equine. At just 34.5 inches tall, this tiny Palomino gelding, Copper Kenny, was already cart-trained when Stuard acquired him.

“I’ve only driven him once, but he was a hoot,” she said. “I expect to start competing with him next year.”

Regionally, a few of the shows and competitions recognize VSEs, but this is not the case everywhere.

Stuard and some of her competition cronies are working to raise awareness about the VSEs which, like all carriage equines, can include donkeys, horses and mules.

“Many people in this area raise the mini equines, but they may not know about these competitions,” Stuard said. “If we can guarantee the venues at least five minis, the events will recognize them.”

Whether driving a four-wheeled carriage or a two-wheeled cart, a new buggy or an antique, this sport, which in the tri-state area of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico does not feature earned winnings, can become quite expensive.

“If you get into it and really like it, the sky’s the limit,” Stuard said. “For a cart and harness that’s safe and basic, expect to spend around $1,200 to $1,500. That would be a good Training level buggy. You can go to some fun shows, maybe go to driving trials at Training level.”

In spite of the sometimes expensive trappings and vehicles, Stuard’s passion for driving is obvious, and she participates for the sheer love of the sport.

“This is a great sport,” she said. “We have a blast. It focuses on the safety of the horse and driver, and the carriage community are some of the most caring and sharing people I’ve ever met. We may all be in competition, but we all want to help each other, too.”