Handy Pony Course Ideas....

L

loobylu

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 April 2006
Messages
1,037
Location
Scotland
Visit site
Any creative (but reasonably safety consious(sp?)) members? Need a handy pony course for a PC show at the end of the month and to use for a grass roots competition in June. Last year we did 'Teddy Bears picnic' which worked but I'm keen to avoid it being 'same old, same old' as some of the wee ones are poper old hands. So any ideas aside from the norm or perhpas a theme are welcome.
smile.gif

Thanks.
 
Ooh haven't done the bales before but we do have bright orange tarp however I swear the old PC ponies have seen alll of our stuff before. I'm also on the look out for roadworks at the mo....
wink.gif
we had them last year but someone has nicked them from the field (or then again maybe the council just took back 'borrowed goods')
blush.gif
 
Pick up a 'letter' from a barrel and post in a 'letter box' at the other end of the course

Negotiate a twisty maze made from jump materials adopt with colourful balloons
 
Now I like the trailer idea...will have to enquire as to whether we'd be allowed to do that. Thanks. Balloons were condemned last year by the DC so unless we lock her in a cupboard....
smirk.gif
 
Last year we had:
-bending poles
-tarp (walk over)
-one of those labrynth TTEAM pole layouts
-pick up fish from one bucket then unhook in another
-small jump with cuddly bears and tea cups etc
-washing line with doll's clothes
-mini football thing to shoot a goal (involving egtting on and off on off side)
and something else which has escaped me.....
 
hmm, so they would be holding (or otherwise storing!) an item over the whole course. Haven't done that before so once I think of a theme I'll incorporate that idea. Thanks!
cool.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
hmm, so they would be holding (or otherwise storing!) an item over the whole course.

[/ QUOTE ] Doesn't have to be over the whole course - can just be over a part of it - depending on the difficulty level required.

[ QUOTE ]
Haven't done that before so once I think of a theme I'll incorporate that idea. Thanks!
cool.gif


[/ QUOTE ] Depending on your theme you can alter it in various ways - instead of a letter into a letterbox it could be a bunch of flowers to be put in a vase, an item of shopping to be put in a basket etc.
 
balloons is always a good one

Picking stuff up; getting on and off; jump with fillers.

Oh and making them play makeshift polo - large round ball and a flag pole - get them to get the ball from A-B
 
We've done loads. A lot of the bigger ones had fake roadworks with cones and flapping tape, giant tubes and scarecrow builders at the beginning and end...one with a pram! The horse had to walk through it all (there was a zig-zag path through the roadworks).

Another obstacle was a camp site with a little tent and those mini windmills that kids put in sandcastles and they spin in the wind.

A lot use umbrellas too - lean over, pick it up off bucket, put it up whist on horse, walk to another bucket with brolly up, then take it down and put it down.

And some have fishing nets - rider has to lean over horse and fish rubber ducks out of one bucket and put them in another.

Open gate, walk through, close gate.

Load into trailer, stand for one minute, then walk out.

Throw tennis balls into netball nets!

Walk through a line of low dangly colourful strips of tape (party decorations or those doorway curtain things), low enough for the horse's head to have to walk through them.

Plus the things other people have already mentioned!

Oh, and rein-back around a corner!

Ooooh, i LOVE handy pony classes - Murph was AMAZING at them!
grin.gif
 
giant plastic sunflowers that need moving from one cone, bending through a load of cones with those wind spinny things on them to the end cone where giant sunflower is deposited! this was part of a handy pony course i did last year, well it was supposed to be a veteran class but the judge didnt have a clue annd hence i changed horses for as my 17 yearold pony would have gone ballistic but my 25 yearold pony just sulked about being asked to do something so undignified (he sulks if you fall off as well)
 
Grocery shopping - small basket & shopping list , pick up items from floor , barrels etc . (could make it more entertaining for spectators by using carrots & apples ). Hi im new by the way.
 
Thank-you! My friend and I usually end up designing this one but there are soo many things we are not allowed to do anymore its a nightmare (ie no without stirrups or reins and nothing that can fall over) Oh and balloons are baaad apparently.
 
or do youknow those chain fly doors you get in shops and butchers etc?
at one show i went to they strung 2 of them together between trees and asked the kids to ride the pony through it!
 
no idea why looby, but it was so surreal, i refused to do the jump over water at the end as the pony was 25 and had been retired from jumping when he was 18 due to an injury. He was the only one id of even dreamed of doing a HP course on, ive got 4 veterans, the 2 17 yearolds would have been in the next county before you could blink, and the 26 yearold pony would have gone nutty! There were alot of complaints about that class by the other competitiors as there was a 38 yearold pony and the judge expected it to jump as well. My pony just dragged me out of the ring after the class!
 
Oh dear...I was surprised last year when our local VHS qualifier was held in the hardest, rutted arena on a slope at the centre when the derby arena was empty all afternoon.
mad.gif
was it some sort of perverse soundness test?
crazy.gif
 
as you can see he wasn't impressed and decided to drag me out the ring (ears forward is because they have just lowered the rope accross the entrance)
llandona012.jpg
 
In the past I have had to jump over a fence with an open umbrella, walk over plastic, pop a ballon, get on from the wrong side, lead the pony whilst wheeling a wheel barrow. I would avoid the trailer idea as if a pony slipped and cut itself you would be in big trouble!
Look at some of the pony club games and then do slightly simpler versions as part of the course. Bending, posting things, jumping in sacks.
 
All the ideas that have been suggested are fab, but another is to do apple bobbing first, and then in quick succession have to get polos out of plates of flour using teeth!
laugh.gif
grin.gif
 
Now that WOULD have the mother's up in arms! Can't say I'd want to do that in my show gear! could maybe run with just the apple bobbing though....
tongue.gif
 
I used to love Handy Pony and Margo won at every show we went to. Used to like as really tested others. Putting an umbrella up. Getting ping pong balls out of water with a fishing net, pegging washing on a washing line, going backwards into backing poles rather than walking in and backing out - you have to have a pony who can turn on the forehand for that. Another good one was a plastic tube like guttering leant against a barrel at an angle. Bucket of stones on the top of the barrel and the rider had to get a handful and let them roll down the tube to a bucket collecting them at the bottom. So many ponies spooked at that cos they didn't know where the stones were going and what the noise was. Bending through cones with one hand on your head. Dismounting and placing ponies two front feet in 2 buckets then standing there for a count of 10. Getting on the wrong side. We had a fly door, one of those things that people put on their doors to stop flies coming into their house. Coloured long strips of plastic put on two very high jump wings to walk through. Margo used to close her eyes, poke her nose through and then go through it. We even had a horse see saw. You would also be surprised how many "handy ponies" wont box!!!! Walking through a childs paddling pool with floating rubber ducks was a good one! "L" shaped jump. Have to jump as a bounce at an angle. Circle of trotting poles and not clip any of them. Dragging a plastic sack behind you which is filled with empty tin cans and makes a right noise. Mounting with a plastic cup of water. Apple bobbing (could never do that one). Dismounting, getting a giant teddy and placing over saddle and leading pony over a small jump, removing teddy and remounting. Posting a letter. Lots of noise.
 
Get them to walk through/under a line of "washing" but proper human clothes, not dolls clothes.
carry a cup of water from one barrel to another
At a Grass Roots one my children did, they had to take a letter to post from someone sitting in a chair holding a great big rainbow coloured golf umbrella and then go post it in the letter box.
Child to dismount and lead pony whilst they walk over a few "stepping stones"

Oh, and another one I heard about but didn't see, involved the use of one of those "crazy daisy" hose sprays that they had to get the pony to go through - maybe only on a really hot day, perhaps?

Shame about the ballons, can't someone slip the DC something to incapacitate her temporarily?
 
Wow, fantastic ideas! I think one we did once that hasn't been mentioned yet was something to do with a scarecrow, can't quite remember what, I think it was something like put clothes on him which the ponies found quite scary as scarecrow (or person to them) didn't move or speak - very strange human behaviour!
 
Thanks everyone! I now have a long list of ideas. Some in particular are blooming brilliant but I don't think h&S would approve....
tongue.gif
cool.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top