Can anyone give me an idiots guide to Pony Club please?

If you're brave with thick skin, then go for it. I'm sadly in the avoid camp, as much as I tried my friend and I were rejected by the instructors and members. We had cobs, not very well schooled but lovely horses and we were willing to learn and get the horses out and experiencing new things. It left with myself (aged around 15) and my friend in her 20s hacking home, both in tears after the instructor smacked my friends lovely little cob around the face with a schooling whip she had snatched off another rider, all because the horse was having a good look at the poles laid out in the floor before stepping over carefully with a little spook at the end.
I was screamed at in front of the rest of the group for not having a whip and refusing to belt my very nervous cob just because she was scared of walking past a woman on a deck chair. Instructor walloped the horse on the bum, and cob did an almighty spook. I'm sure this had a lasting affect on my anxiety, and we didn't go back.
I would have loved to have been able to hack along each week to learn for a good price, but because we didn't have well schooled jumping ponies we were looking down upon and it was made clear we weren't welcome there :(
 
I think it's very sad that so many people feel the PC isn't for them. Certainly for me as a child with non horsey parents it was a lifeline, but that was a very long time ago. I now think too much emphasis is made of competition which is basically beyond the hope of the majority of the branch members.
Suppose a branch has 100 members, the chances are there will be 10% capable of team activities, even at the lower levels. This leaves an awful lot who often don't have horses that quite come up to scratch in the eyes of some of the committee and instructors.
I feel that with all the disciplines now offering so much for members with competition ponies it's time for the PC to offer far more to the grass roots riders.
 
My son is only 5 but we've been in pc for two years and loved every minute. .. Loads of mini rallies, good instruction, lots of lovely friends made, and camp is fantastic. ..

Fiona
 
I think that there have always been some branches which are overtly competitive and neglect the grass roots rider. I'm an old f@rt (58) who came up through Pony Club, and my mum was the local branch secretary for several years. I learned lots during my PC years, it was mostly great fun.

Our branch fostered the less well off kids from the local run down riding school and encouraged them to raise their standards, which they responded to with relish. Equally, we had the young Virginia Holgate on our horse trials team, so we catered for a fair spread of ability (btw Mrs Holgate was very down to earth and supportive, not pushy).

OP, do your research carefully and hopefully you will be able to find a suitable local branch which will do you, your ponies and their riders proud :).
 
I feel very sad that so many have had a negative experience as I said in my previous post, my daughter had a great time. Just for the record she rode an exmoor cross, connie and a connie cross. None of her ponies were expensive but it didn't stop her competing at area level in three disciplines and getting to the champs. she also competed at Gatcombe and Blenheim in PC SJ teams. I do some low key judging for my local PC fun show and most of the horses are cobs, some greener than the rider can really cope with but no-one "looks down their nose" at them. We are in area 9, so are in competition with the "smart" Cotswold PCs where TBH there is a lot of money and some very smart mounts, perhaps if we'd been in one of those clubs she might have had a different experience. so choose the PC with care is probably the best advice!
 
It's very interesting to read such varied opinions !

I adored pony club and had a brilliant time- did all the badges, rallies, camps etc. I am aware they can vary hugely depending on area, I was a member of a small PC branch in area 13, so always got a chance to be on the teams as it wasn't hugely competitive! However in other branches with larger memberships, the competition for team places was a lot more serious. If you ask people locally you'll find that certain branches have certain reputations - e.g. More young members, more jumping orientated etc.

I do think it is invaluable for instilling a certain standard in stable maintenance and turnout- neither of my parents are horsey and the pony club taught me quite literally everything I know about horse and stable care. My branch was also fairly "normal"- no big budget flashy ponies, and there was a great sense of humour running through everything (like most impressive fall awards at camp!).

One thing I did find was that it was more angled towards younger children (again, could be branch dependent), but by the time I was 16 everyone started drifting off to BE or BD depending on interests.
I'd say it's worth a try- if i remember correctly you should be able to attend a few rallies before you have to commit to a membership? And also membership is useful for other things - great insurance and makes you eligible for the dengie winter qualifiers in dressage/sj, which are great for winter training!
 
It obviously depends on the individual branch you join. I was a member of a newly formed branch and had great fun, made life long friends and learned a lot. I did teams from games to show jumping and eventing as well as tests which stood me in good stead for jobs when I was older. My son joined an old established branch, he too had a very positive experience, again doing tests and competing in dressage, show jumping and eventing teams up to open level at the championships. He made great friends and we both now share training duties for the branches intermediate and open teams and sit on the branch committee. Maybe we have both been lucky but our experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. One thing that springs to mind is that branches can now offer taster rallies for people prior to joining so that may be way to get a feel of a branch.
 
I was in Pony Club in my teens, rather a long time ago I have to say!!

Most rallies were held in places I couldn't go to, as my parents weren't horsey and having let me have what was a very lovely and sweet pony (pony in a million), they couldn't run to the expense of transport as well, so if I wanted to go to anything it had to be within hacking distance; I remember hacking 8 miles to a Pony Club show, competing, and then hacking all the way back again. You had to back then, we were - my opinion anyway - not so pampered back then.

I enjoyed some of Pony Club - but never really felt that they were there for kids like me, i.e. non-horsey background. It was very cliquey I seem to remember, and if you were the son or daughter of the right "set" then you were OK, but kids who were like me and coming to rallies on their own, felt totally out of it.

There was a lot of the traditional disciplines like SJ, X-Country, and Prince Phillip Cup. But none of that was my thing - if they'd had something like TREC, or Endurance, or para-equestrianism, it would have given the odd-ball kids like me something to get involved in.

I went to Pony Club camp - just the once. It was OK'ish, but again I felt very much an outsider and when my subscription came up for renewal I never bothered to renew it. I was 16 at that time and felt that PC just had nothing to offer me, it was only for the "posh" kids who were into competing in the traditional disciplines.
 
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