92 SIDELINESMAY 2014
FORHORSEPEOPLE • ABOUTHORSEPEOPLE
it works for me! I squeeze
a fist withmy left hand and
tell myself to “focus” and it
really seems to get me in
the right place and ready to
be on the job. I do this as I
am being counted down in
the start box or on thepace
lap at the start of a race – it
really helps!
3) I have something that
I say tomyself before I get
going in either sport, and
again it reallyseems tohelp
put me in the right place
and get my brain focused.
I say inmy head, “Be cool,
be calm, be safe, be smart,
be fast.” The order of the
wordsdon’t seem tomatter,
but saying them in my head helps get me focused and where I
need to be!
Tell us about beingphysicallyfit for racing and eventing.
I was actually an eventer before I was a racing driver, but
certainly as I moved up through the levels of racing, particularly
endurance racing from 6 to 12 to 24 hours, I had to focus on
certainareas of fitness that becamemore important the faster the
cars were that I drove. At a 24-hour race, I could be in a car for
sometimes threehoursat a timeand the forcesexperienced in the
carwerequiteextreme.Then, on topof that, youhave toadd in the
excessiveheat thatweoften faced from theoutsideconditions, the
engine and being on the track with sometimes 50 or more other
cars. It took a physical and mental fitness that surpassed what
I could achieve with just horse riding alone. Luckily, both sports
tend to use all of your body and core strength, and both demand
a high level of reaction, speed and focus, so in a way they both
complemented each other. But when I was racing really fast cars
with highG-force I made sure that I saw a personal trainer a few
timesaweek to focusonneckandupper bodystrength, aswell as
longer periods of sustained
higher heart rate.
When you drive the lorry
oracaron the roadswhat
kind of driver frustrates
you and how do you
react?
It drives me crazy when
people drive under the
speed limit! I try not to get
too wound up about it,
but I might be guilty of the
occasional tailgating.
Doyou react differently in theUKvs. theU.S. whendriving?
It does really frustrate me that in Britain there seems to
constantly be road work going on, which cause endless traffic
jams, but very rarely do you see people working on them. I think
the biggest difference is that the USA is a much newer country
so there is more space for bigger highways and efficient roads
networks. Living in England, it is certainly challenging driving a
huge horse box where the roads are very narrow, low bridges,
etc., but you soon get used to it. I suppose what we sacrifice in
efficiency in Britain we gain in having a picturesque countryside
and years of incrediblehistory aroundus.
You went to Cincinnati for the USEA annual meeting, how
was that?
I was so glad that I made the effort to go to Cincinnati for the
USEA annual meeting. A big reason for me going was that this
year, having finally made the High Performance Training list for
the first time, I realised that I had really lost touch with the USA
Liz behind thewheel in a
LeMans race.
Photo by JohnWaugh
Liz andFernhill ByNight
on their way towinning the
BarrocaCIC2*.
Photo courtesy of LizHalliday
