18 January 2020

Steve Wilson retires from Driving sport

US international pair driver Steve Wilson has decided to retire from the Driving sport at the age of 71. Steve didn’t start combined driving until he was 62, but in eight years, he’s won four national championships — all while being legally blind.

Steve is retiring from driving, having accomplished what he set out to achieve — even being named to the U.S. team in 2017 at the age of 69 and again in 2019 at the age of 71.

Photo: Krisztina Horváth

A Multifaceted Challenge

Steve discovered driving at the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky, a short drive from his home near Louisville. He was instantly enthralled. “It inspired me to get into the sport,” he says. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s something I can do.’”

Steve was right, despite his diminished eyesight. Steve relies on muscle memory and visualization and has extensive rituals to prepare for competition. The challenges of the sport — and of his unique situation — are what have kept Steve so engaged.

“When you’re in the ring, no matter how many times you’ve done it, you’ve got your brain and the brains of two horses — so the three of you are trying to reach impossible, perfect movement,” he explains. “And nothing ever goes quite like you think it should … But it’s always striving to do it a little bit better, a little bit better.”

Photo: Krisztina Horváth

A Bittersweet Moment

Though Steve feels confident that he’s made his mark on his sport, retirement comes with mixed emotions, he says. He’ll continue to work to further the sport in the United States — it’s much more widely known in Europe — as part of his many professional endeavors.

Along with his wife, Laura Lee Brown, Steve hosts a driving competition called the Kentucky Classic every other year at their Hermitage Farm in Oldham County, Kentucky. This year, Steve says, exciting plans are in the works with the hopes of expanding national interest in driving. Post-retirement from competition, Steve will devote time to his other interests and ventures: currently, a restaurant and bourbon-tasting event built inside of an old horse barn. “There’s going to be all the cribbing marks of the horses and tabled seating in the stalls,” says Steve. “It’s going to be lots of fun.”

He’ll also be busy running 21c Museum Hotels, an art museum and boutique hotel experience he and his wife founded in Louisville.

What Steve will miss most of all about driving is the mindfulness it asks of its competitors.

“One of the things I loved about driving was the intensity of it,” he says. “It really requires you to focus. When I’m on the carriage with the horses, I can’t worry about a hotel opening or what the average click rate is or anything like that. It forces you to be present.”

Source: USET

Photo: Krisztina Horváth