This section will in time contain many interesting articles written by Dawn herself and also by other equestrian experts. We hope to cover topics such as horse health, the rider, training and schooling, problem solving and lots more. So watch this space!.......

PONY CLUB ARTICLE 2011.

THEN & NOW”.

Once upon a time I was a pony club girl! Now older and having no less than four active pony clubbers of my own I am on many occasions asked “…what was it like in your day?”

Please don’t assume that by this question I am old, I’m NOT! I’m still just about in my thirties for all those who are curious!!! But sometimes I do feel like I was a pony clubber in a whole other era compared to modern day PC.

You see in my day pony club was quite different to the pony club we know and love today.

Firstly all ponies were hairy. None of this polished, preened and rugged up to the eyes lark! We thought only big lofty hunting horses and much pampered top of the range show-jumpers got clipped! Our ponies were living replicas of the Thellwell character ponies. Everybody had one! Small, fat and hairy even in the summer! Certainly not glossy shiny sports ponies all professionally schooled and turned out!

If our ponies were dead ringers for the Thellwell ones then we were a picture perfect match for their riders! Elegant leather riding boots and hairnets? no way. We pony club style queens had wellies and plaits.

Wellie boots served every possible function. They were our daily footwear that went on your feet from when you got up in the morning to when you popped back into bed at night. Even with shorts! I could run faster in my wellies than any top class sprinter. Even though they always came off in the mud this secretly helped with rider fitness as I’m sure anyone who’s had their shoes come off in the mud will tell you – yoga positions are nothing in comparison to the contortions of trying to get back to your shoe without putting that foot down!!! But best of all wellies could be hosed down and lovingly polished into shining examples of desirable pony club turnout for the rider.

Staying on attire, everything back then was hand-me-down, everything. If not handed down then defiantly homemade. Oh yes, we were geniuses with a sewing machine. Fluffy sheepskin numnahs were the speciality in our house. My mum would buy those sheepskin under-blankets (meant to be used beneath the sheet on a bed in the winter) and we would turn them into our most prized items. Once we had made our numnahs we would use the cut offs to adorn every other conceivable part of our pony and ourselves. We had fluffy nosebands, fluffy bandages (yes I know… cringe!) and fluffy liners for inside our groovy willies.

Astride our hairy ponies wearing our multi-purpose wellies and deluxe sheepskin numnahs we attended rallies, competitions, hunted and went to camp. Nothing different there you might think, but we didn’t transport ponies to anything, oh no, we hacked there. No matter how far away we rode there. Setting off down the road we would more often than not meet others doing similar and we would reach our destination en mass and our hairy ponies would be already sweating and blowing! On with the day’s enjoyment only to hack our ponies all the way home again (usually at considerable speed). I sometimes wonder just how fit must our ponies have actually been? We clocked up mega mileage on the poor things!

Although there are huge differences in the way things are done now-a-days and how we went about things way back in the early 80s I cannot for one moment think we missed out on a single thing, no way. We had a ball! Some of my most treasured memories are from my pony club days. One of the most cherished is from the year I was selected to represent my branch at Robbie Bailey. What an honor. Albeit on a borrowed pony which pulled like a train and tried to kill me all because my own pony didn’t jump anything he suspected to be over two-foot-six! I’m not sure if any of my other success in life could ever compare with the thrill of it all.

I am fortunate now as I get to re-live my pony club days alongside my kids with the added guilty pleasure of all the modern conveniences I only dreamed of as a child. I wonder what it will be like in another generation’s time???PONY CLUB ARTICLE.