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.