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A four-in-hand is a team of four horses pulling a 
In Europe, after
carriage
A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...
, coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of Athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Coac ...
or other horse-drawn vehicle
A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by auto ...
.''Oxford English Dictionary'' online accessed 20 August 2020 Today, four-in-hand driving is the top division of combined driving
Combined driving (also known as horse driving trials) is an equestrian sport involving driving (horse), carriage driving. In this discipline, the driver sits on a vehicle drawn by a single horse, a pair or a team of four. The sport has three p ...
in equestrian sports; other divisions are for a single horse or a pair. One of the international events featuring only four-in-hand teams is the FEI World Cup Driving series.
In Europe, after mail coach
A mail coach is a stagecoach that is used to deliver mail. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia, they were built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. ...
es and public post coaches were largely supplanted by railroad travel, driving large private coaches drawn by four horses became a popular sporting activity of the rich, and driving clubs were formed. England's Four-In-Hand Driving Club
A driving club was a 19th century membership club for the recreational practice of carriage driving.
Early British driving clubs
Benson Driving Club
One of the first driving clubs was the Bensington Driving Club, founded in February 1807 at ...
was formed in 1856. Membership was limited to thirty and they drove private coaches known as drags made on the pattern of the old Post Office mail coaches but luxuriously finished and outfitted. A new group called the Coaching Club was formed in 1870 for those unable to join the club of 30. Other enthusiasts revived old coaching routes and took paying passengers. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr. (October 20, 1877 – May 7, 1915) was an American businessman and member of the Vanderbilt family. A sportsman, he participated in and pioneered a number of related endeavors. He died in the sinking of the RMS Lus ...
championed coaching in America, and he and several other of his contemporaries engaged in public coaching for hire in America and England.
T. Bigelow Lawrence of Boston owned America's first locally built park drag in 1860. Leonard Jerome
Leonard Walter Jerome (November 3, 1817 – March 3, 1891) was an American financier in Brooklyn, New York, and the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill.
Early life
Leonard Jerome was born in Pompey in Onondaga County, New York, on Novemb ...
took to driving coaches with six and eight horse teams to go to watch horse races. New York's Coaching Club was formed in 1875.
See also
*Notes
References
Carriages {{Vehicle-stub