Amy Cross started at age 4 with pony riding through the North Shore Horsemen’s Association, and her professional career in horse care began 32 years ago when she started working at a farm while studying music education at the University of New Hampshire. Amy now works as barn manager for Wendy O’Brien’s Trout Walk Farm in Chestertown, Maryland, where they care for around 10 horses including ponies, a Poitou donkey, 
and a miniature horse! Her career journey in Driving started while working for Leslie Burr Howard and later for Wendy, whom she followed to Aiken, South Carolina in 2008. She experienced her first Driving experience at Gladstone with a Haflinger in 2009 and had subsequent success showing Welsh cobs, becoming National Pairs Champion in 2014 and 2015.
Amy and Suzy have divided the responsibilities of organizing to achieve their goals of improving the facility and encouraging more participation. Amy handles all the paperwork required to run an event, and Suzy maintains the physical course setup. Â To this end they will continue efforts to increase the number of competitors in the Driving Trial (DT) for next year. The team also is seeking sponsorships and donations to fund hazard refurbishments and show expenses. Most importantly, the two enthusiastically want to maintain and promote the fun and welcoming atmosphere of the show to encourage repeat and new participants. It is also important to the organizers to explore ways to encourage and support junior participation in the event.
There is another member of the team who has special skills that all the competitors can appreciate. Meet Debby Donovan, a longtime friend of Suzy Stafford and an avid Driving enthusiast! (Pictured here with her Morgan, “Brighton.”)
Debby successfully transitioned the event from a paper-based entry system to a fully online platform using a tool called Clapia. She describes the system as “Google Forms on steroids,” supporting online waivers, conditional logic, and full customization. It took her several months to build and deploy the online entry system from scratch, tailoring it to meet the needs of the Elk Creek competition. She manages entries, start times, stabling coordination, carriage-sharing scheduling, and competitor follow-ups. Carriage-sharing coordination was the most complex scheduling challenge — some competitors had 3–4-way shares, requiring a great deal of maneuvering to get the competitors where they needed to be on time with all the correct equipment.
Debby was quick to describe the strengths of Elk Creek as having a low-key atmosphere, beginner-friendly officials, well-maintained hazards/obstacles, and the limited regional competition for this caliber of event.