SATURDAY7TH JANUARY 2012

With our 1st Pony Club Rally of 2012, may we take this opportunity to hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and we wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Can I eat this?

Today saw Jenna taking the riding sessions as usual, and with the members all having been away for 2 weeks during the holiday season a lot of figure-work & transitions were brushed up on. Several members still had their holiday heads on and had a lot of fun. But then Pony Club Should be fun, as well as lots of learning with the opportunities to apply that learning. Jenna also worked on control and accuracy as well as Jumping with the senior members.

Jenny Worked in the yard, grooming & mucking out with the members, she also (with the help of the members) developed our own ‘Pine Ridge Pony Club’ version of the ‘Macarena’ which the children all had a whole lot of fun with!

This is going to continue as a work in progress for the future – watch this space.

All of the members also like the hula-hoops and, as this also helps with their balance and co-ordination time is usually allocated for this most weeks.

June meanwhile was round the back covering Road Rider. This is a very long badge to learn and we will cover it many more times before the members will be able to be tested on it. They have to learn the rules of the road, and when they should dismount & lead their horses, how to ride different road junctions & roundabouts, spotting hazards etc. This is one of the few badges that we have to have an outside examiner for – we are not allowed to test ‘in-house’ and will not put anyone forward for this badge until we are certain that they will pass it! Only one member has already done this badge and she did it at the age of 16! The members have to learn to think about how to do these things for themselves, so rather than trying to ‘drum’ it into them, June tries to teach by asking questions on how they ‘think’ it should be ridden – If they get it wrong then she corrects them, as they have all had in the past, the lectures and the practical sessions!

This book can help your child to study & learn for this badge at home - it is available from the Pony Club. to purchase please go to
Cost is £2.95 - a small price to pay to help keep your child safe when riding out on the road!

This weeks birthdays

Chloe will be 8 on the 13th January
We would like to wish you a very Happy Birthday from all of us here at Pine Ridge Pony Club Centre.





Forthcoming events

We are getting together a Quiz Team made up of 4 members to take part in the Pony Club NUF National Quiz of 2012! So we are looking for:

1 Member any age under 12 on 1st January 2012
1 Member any age under 14 on 1st January 2012
1 Member any age under 16 on 1st January 2012
1 Member any age under 21 on 1st January 2012

These are the ideal age range choices, however we can double up on ages.
All team members MUST be friendly, happy, smiley, horsey loving people, with a need to WIN (as we must WIN).

If you think you would love to take part and are willing to put the time in to WIN, then feel free to talk to Jenny, June or Hannah N to find out more!

SATURDAY 3RD DECEMBER 2011

What a lovely but chilly start to December. The members almost decided for themselves what they wanted to do today (with a little bit of guidance from us)

Jenna took all of the riding today and worked on a wide variety of things. With the older members there was jumping exercises, balance, control, 20m circles etc all done in trot while with the younger members, there were also lots of balancing exercises, accuracy, 20m circles, serpentines, etc however they were done in walk. They all rode round on the track as well during the morning session.

They followed the riding with untacking the ponies and putting them back into their stables.

Meanwhile June had all of the members in the yard, for grooming, mucking out, cleaning water buckets & Putting hay round all of the stables ready for lunch time. They had their knowledge of grooming tested, mucking out also for the reasons behind each job. They also made sure that the horses had hay in their stables for lunch.

After all of this was done, they all went into the school on foot for the fun.

Firstly, Hannah gave them a lesson on dressage on foot where they tried different exercises.

Jenna then gave them a jumping lesson on foot. She started with some ground poles set at a certain distance apart and got the members to jump over them with a varying amount of strides between each jump. This is a ground exercise to help teach the members about the horses striding and how sometimes you have to ask the horse to lengthen its stride OR shorted it, (very few jumping courses are set at ideal distances for your own horse).

In the afternoon session, we had 3 small competitions! The first was the best groomed horse or pony! Each member was allocated a pony for the afternoon, and they each had to do all their own grooming. The winners of this were Eryn with Fred & Alice with Barney! They both did very well.

The second was fo the best rider of the day, again there were 2 winners for this category – Emily on Danny & Annabel on Jack. Both rode extremely well and have improved immensely.

The final category was for our helpers, Both Hannah B & Hannah N are Pony Club Members as well as being helpers. They often go unmentioned but the other members got together and decided that the final category should go to the helpers for the amount of time, effort & help that they give to all of the other members.


Well done to all of you members & helpers alike for such good work!

SATURDAY 26TH NOVEMBER 2011

We did a very wide variety of things this week! The members started out with Alice’s Charity Cake Stall – Alice was doing her Fund Raising Badge & decided on a cake sale. There were a wide variety of very delicious cakes & cookies and Alice did a roaring trade all morning, She thought that she had made enough to be able to come back in the afternoon and sell more, but misjudged just how popular they would be – She sold out and has raised somewhere in the region of £35 for the Neuroblastoma Society for Childhood Cancers – Extremely well done Alice!

Riding was with Jenna & June who worked on the usual Accuracy, Control, Figure Work & Balance with lots of exercises to achieve these aims.

Unfortunately during June’s Session there was an episode when the horses spooked due to the sudden appearance of a Pheasant followed by a strange dog, that had the ponies all dancing sideways and 3 Riders parted company from their ponies. This just goes to show how unpredictable ponies can be & why balance is so very important.

On the yard with Jenny, the members were grooming, mucking out, doing hay & waters and one member asked if she could show her how to do a tail plait so that she could try to do it as well (June got the job). They also did some horse handling & leading on the yard using Jack & Ella with Jenny.

Meanwhile, back in the sand school Hannah was teaching the members about dressage. She had the members doing figure-work on foot, collected & extended trots & canters all on foot. There was a lot of energy expelled doing these exercises and they were a lot of fun.

This Weeks Birthdays

Joshua was 9 years old on the 25th November & Megan was 12 years old on the 30th November. May we wish you both a belated Happy Birthday from all of us here at Pine Ridge Pony Club Centre.

SATURDAY 19TH NOVEMBER 2011

The members were, as usual, separated into groups! Jenna concentrated on the riding and covered accuracy & control in walk & trot as well as transitions from halt to walk & walk to halt.

They all rode very well indeed and the reward for the last session was mounted games!

Jenny & June worked in the yard with them doing mucking out, grooming, horse handling & tacking up.

Back to the mounted games! These were played on horseback in walk & involved bending in & out of bending poles, dismounting, running back over the stepping stones & throwing a ball into a bucket before running back to where the next team member was waiting to go on horseback.

This was a lot of fun but very tiring for those of us on the ground as we had to do a lot of running.

The members didn’t want to stop but as there was another session in the afternoon, we had to finally call a halt to the games & take the ponies in for lunch & Untack them.

The afternoon session ran in a similar vein but without the mounted games. We did riding in open order and had a lot of fun with that as it really enables the members to put into practice what they have learned.

SATURDAY 12TH NOVEMBER 2011

Firstly I would like to apologise for the lack of last weeks blog, I have had an extremely busy week on a personal level and was unable to do it!

Now to the business of the day!

Announcing the winner of our Sunflower Growing Competition – Libby, her prize was a book on horsemanship which we have all signed for her and we hope that she finds it informative, Keep up the good work Libby.

Paul & Jack taught the members in the yard this week – They covered Mucking Out, Grooming, Sweeping the Yard, Filling Haynets, Filling Water Buckets & Feeding.

The Aim of these tasks is to instil some knowledge of how to care for a pony should they ever be lucky enough to own their own at some time in their lives.

There are certain jobs that have to be done every single day, regardless of how you feel or what the weather is like!

Mucking Out, Feeding & Watering your Horse is a daily job as should be grooming. Grooming is important to check for injuries or swellings that can lead to unsoundness in the horses.

Bailey was the star of these sessions as she just loves to do all of these really mucky jobs and does them so well.






Riding was with Jenna.

Jenna tried to get the members to act ‘drunk’ on the ponies to get them relaxed in the saddle! This enables them to test their balance in a relaxed way!

She then went on to do lots of different exercises to strengthen their position & balance. There were lots of leg stretching, toe touching & balancing by standing in the stirrups.

Jenna also did some Figure work with them like ‘Figures of Eight’ & ‘Three Loop Serpentines’

Yasmine was the most improved this week – well done Yasmine, keep up the good work.

During all of these exercises, Daisy decided that she was hot & the sand being quite wet looked very inviting to a hot horse, so she thought that she would quite like to roll and cool down! Poor Madison had to jump off quite quickly to avoid getting caught under her – well done Madison for acting so fast - Naughty Daisy!!!!!

Meanwhile – in the office June was in charge of the Crafting session that we had today. The members were making Cards with a horse theme. There was a lot of glue, a whole lot of glitter glue, a heap of noise and then on top of it all a lot, lot more glitter.

Some of the members have decided to keep their wonderful cards hidden from parents as a surprise so please excuse me if I don’t show any of the members finished items!

I will say however that they were all wonderful but the one I liked the mose was Alice’s first card (Some of the members managed to do more than one card)


Well done to you all, see you next week for more Pony Club Fun.