How often does your child ride their pony?

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Tronk

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Hi - we got my daughter a pony on trial last Friday :) and she's loving it. Obviously though now she's gone back to school by the time she is home it is too dark to ride. So I was just wondering, out of interest, how much riding your kids with ponies do at this time of year? How do you keep the ponies fit enough for Pony Club at the weekend?
 
My mum rode and lead our ponies through the week when it was dark by the time we got home, but we still did get a ride or two in by having out boots and chaps in the car and putting them on over our uniform and going straight to the yard.

My mum wasn't horsey at all to start with, but was small enough to ride ours and you don't need to be an expert to hack out. If you can't ride, then lunging or asking someone else on your yard to lead the pony out when they go out riding can work...
 
Mine has always ridden about 4/5 times a week at least, but she's always had ponies that competed for the last 10yrs ish. When we just rented a field she would either hack out around the village under street lights on an evening or 1st thing in the morning (me with her) or I would rig up a site light to light up a little patch of field to ride in.

Now we've moved to a yard with an arena & she's moved onto horses but the arena has no lighting. We found that she only had 2/3 weeks where it was truly too dark to ride in so she just did weekends then or I booked her a lesson elsewhere for midweek so she was still getting to ride. Since going back to school this week we have found that she can get 20 mins of riding in before it is too dark so she managed that on Monday & last night x

Edited to add that I don't ride & we aren't allowed to lunge in the arena so I'm pretty much useless at being able to help keep her fit!
 
Thanks - I'll have a go at riding and leading from my horse and see how we get on. Also I'll try and be more organised getting home from school quicker! No more nattering at the school gate!!
 
Child A shares a horse with me and generally rides once a week in winter (at the weekend). Horse is stabled on full livery in winter and we arrange for her to be schooled / exercised mid week. Child B has her own pony, which lives out. She rides at most once a week in winter (pony is allowed to grow a thick coat so is not up for too much fast work) and only does things like pony club in spring / summer.
 
I fetch the horse in at just before 3pm & feed her then. Get the child from school at 3.50pm & go straight to the yard ( other child either walks home or I do a quick detour to drop him off). Daughter gets changed while I tack up then she gets straight on & gets cracking! It's helping that she does a 20min interval training twice a week so it works out perfect at the moment as she only really gets 30 mins rideable light. Normally she's on board by 4.10-4.15pm x
 
It had varied over the years with my girls but currently my 15 year old rides 3 horses/ponies 6 times a week. Each one gets 45 mins a night with one night off a week each (very occasionally two if weather very bad) One pony Arab X Section C has to get excercised regularly to keep weight off as lives on fresh air. One TB just out of racing now being retrained so has to be consistent and a tbx mare who has to be ridden practically everyday or can be a problem child! (this one going back to owner soon). Its tough and hard to fit all in but her pregnant sister sometimes will ride if younger daughter has GCSE exam next day. We all help with mucking out and feeding but most of the time they all live out so this helps timewise. For the other horses I have 2 kids (15 and 17) who come in 3 times a week to ride/help and pregnant daughter picks up the slack (not for much longer though). I am too heavy really to ride some of them so help with lunging and long reining where I can. Its hard work keeping them all exercised but I feel that where possible my horses are happier in work. Even the oldies are ridden/hacked lightly when sound (just weekends) to keep them interested they look forward to it.

She does ride practically in the dark with very little light, the horses get used to it and I think their eyesight is better than ours.
 
My 6 year old son was doing very well riding his pony 2 or 3 times a week with a hack on the weekend but he got chicken pox just before Christmas and his pony went lame so they aren't doing anything much until Pony is 100% then he wants to start pony club so he will be riding 3-4 times a week and maybe more in the summer ( I will add he is only just off the lead rein, he trots quite a bit and hasn't mastered canter yet as pony very quick so not really hard work :) )Its a pain as we have a floodlit school but the floodlights (bar one) came down in all that bad weather we had and haven't been fixed yet, I'm aggrieved to pay for an hours use of lights for 1 light!
 
I had two ponies at home and my parents made me ride one at least 4/5 times a week and the other twice or they wouldn't take me to shows or threatened to sell them. I rode one in the morning if it was bright, got showered then went to school then a repeat when I came home. When the nights started getting longer I rode them both in the evening after school. This was from when I was 11 till I was 14, I'm 16 now but have my horse on livery with a floodlit arena so I can ride whenever. My friends ride their horses in very little light though because they have their horses at home and schoolwork comes first but the horses seem to cope fine and at least they're getting out:)
 
My lad rides his every day when he is not at school - come rain or shine bless him!

As my son is 11yrs old he has a 14.2hh so I hack it out in termtime/winter to help keep it fit when he is not here.

His first pony was too small for me to ride I lunged/loose schooled it every day and also lead it off my horse a couple of times a week for a hack.
 
I used to ride and lead but mini's young mare doesn't lead well. She rides both days at the weekend, one day hacking and one day PC or competing, and we have one flat lesson booked each week and a jumping lesson fortnightly both in the evenings in arenas. I now lunge the mare once a week instead of one ride and lead session, and hack her myself for the other one. Mini would love to ride more often but is out from 7.30am till 5.30pm and in year 9 the pressure of homework and looming gcse's means we have to be disciplined about it. Bleugh.
 
Mine is feeling the pressure of GCSEs she is in year 10. She gets to yard at 3.40 and rides and sorts horses till 6 then home shower and food and revise till 9.30 then half hour downtime and then bed. She gets up at 6.15 and revises for 45-1hr before going to school. I do worry that she is pushing herself a too much. Many of her friends are banned from their hobbies while GCSEs are on but she does probably 3 hours a day revision and fits in horses NO TV NO Social life but thats her choice. She took 4 GCSEs early in year 9 and had A A A* and a B so her dedication is paying off so I just support her as much as possible she is very determined and mature for her age though.
 
When I was young my parents weren't horsey so I had no help which ment I rode on the weekend and that was it. PC wasn't a problem as we had no transport and he wouldn't load anyway!
I tried at first do keep my daughters current pony ticking over but tbh it's not really happening due to weather and the fact he's young and green so hacking alone on the busy roads by us with all this surface water is just silly. She also has a loan horse kept at its owners yard who have a school but no lights, however it means if she changes quick and I pick her up rather than bus from school she can ride that one several times a week then hunt on a Saturday. I really wish she rode her own pony more though!
 
My sister rides her pony every weekend as the field is a bog so we can only hack out which involves crossing a fairly busy cross roads to get to the bridleways so isn't really safe for her to do this alone or in the dark. She lunges her a few times a week and I hack her out during the day time (pony is 13.2hh) and I have more fun hacking her than I do my big lad as we can go exploring through the trees and through streams where he's too big too fit!
 
LCH611 said:
I just accept that they don't get much work at this time of year!
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This exactly. It does depend on the age of the child - I would expect more from an older child or if we had a novice horse that needed the work, but when she was younger I never pressured my daughter to ride on cold dark evenings as I didn't want to put her off completely!

We always wrote December off - if the ponies were hacked out at the weekend it was a bonus. By February half term I would jolly her along a bit so the pony was fit for the spring, but I never really worried about fitness hugely - I just wanted her to enjoy it without pressure.

She is an adult now so I would expect a bit more but I am chuffed to bits that she still wants to ride and she has to chivvy me a bit now :)
 
I wouldn't call myself a child (18) but with college, commuting to college etc, we currently ride twice a week on a Saturday and Sunday. It's pitch black by the time we get home and have just accepted during winter she gets more time to mooch about being a horse. Doesn't bother her at all, still gets the same attention just not ridden as much :)
 
Charmel said:
Mine is feeling the pressure of GCSEs she is in year 10. She gets to yard at 3.40 and rides and sorts horses till 6 then home shower and food and revise till 9.30 then half hour downtime and then bed. She gets up at 6.15 and revises for 45-1hr before going to school. I do worry that she is pushing herself a too much. Many of her friends are banned from their hobbies while GCSEs are on but she does probably 3 hours a day revision and fits in horses NO TV NO Social life but thats her choice. She took 4 GCSEs early in year 9 and had A A A* and a B so her dedication is paying off so I just support her as much as possible she is very determined and mature for her age though.
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Blimey. Does she have January exams or is this all for the end of year? I really admire her dedication, it has to be said - but to me it seems like it's verging on a little obsessive, especially for a year 10!

I did my GCSE's a 5 years ago and my little brother is in the same year as your daughter, my other brother a couple of years older, we didn't pick up revision until a few weeks before exams. I hope her hard work pays off, it sounds like it is!
 
Another vote for the ride and lead option.

We don't have a school, so I used to set up handy pony and gymkhana stuff on the drive to the stables (that is gated), so he could potter about up and down there in the dark while I did evening stables (flag race stuff and fishing balls out of buckets with a net, stepping stones etc) it did him good and was fun at the same time!
 
Charmin said:
Blimey. Does she have January exams or is this all for the end of year? I really admire her dedication, it has to be said - but to me it seems like it's verging on a little obsessive, especially for a year 10!

I did my GCSE's a 5 years ago and my little brother is in the same year as your daughter, my other brother a couple of years older, we didn't pick up revision until a few weeks before exams. I hope her hard work pays off, it sounds like it is!
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She has January exams, Biology, Chemistry and English. Hence the long hours but revision will drop to 1.5 hours a day then till April then step up again. She is kinda obsessive about it but wants to be a vet so a lot of competition. She also manages to compete SJ twice a month, have a fortnightly lesson and play rugby as scrum half in a girls under 18s team. I do worry that she is gonna burn out but she assures me she is fine.....but I am worn out just being her mother, groom, cook, tutor, driver, no 1 fan and general slave and dogsbody! She's a bit hard to keep up with!
 
Most of the year they ride 6 days a week,they are 8 and 10 and have kept to this routine for the past 2.5 years.This time of year it is just weekends as we have no school and no lighting in the field or the road to the village.They have a lesson one night a week once it is light enough and go to Pony Club once a month.I don't ride,but have hacked knobberpony out before,I can't lead off her as she won't have it,so can't exercise them both at the same time.Ours seem fit enough to manage a PC rally even in winter.
 
10yo son also plays football so rides his two ponies after school Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and on Saturday then competes on a Sunday. He plays football Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Elder son when he was a bit older rode one before school as well. Where there is a will there is a way..!
 
I don't have kids, but I am quite a small adult, so I sometimes help people I know with exercising their children's ponies. I think most are fine only ridden at weekends at this time of year, and many people do not even always manage that. However, obviously some ponies need a bit more work to keep them sane or fit. Riding and leading is good if you can manage it, or else I don't think it is hard to find someone who will come up and school them for a couple of hours in the week to keep them ticking over if needs be.

I think a lot of people struggle with riding as much as they like in the winter, especially if the yard is quite a distance from their child's school.
 
My 6yo son ride just the weekend at the moment (unless its the school holidays). I have a younger son so it's a bit difficult unless he rides in the fields which he can't do in the winter!!! I have started to lead her out when riding mine. Based on today's performance when he threw a few bucks I am going to have to ride him more too!

In the summer it's easier as he can ride after school.
 
Our fields are clay so the kids ride on the yard maybe once a week and short hack at weekends. They're only 3 and 4 so no pressure! When i was a kid we had no facility to do this so my pony went out weekends only.

The days are getting longer since christmas and for the first time in a long time i fed at 7:30 this morning without having to turn the lights on! Woop!
 
Some great ideas thanks guys. Honey8 I like the handy pony idea! I have a younger son as well so it is difficult to juggle it all - he's already fed up with trailing round after his sister on the pony! So I tried the ride and lead today and it worked perfectly - so I'll definitely do that a couple of times a week at least. And maybe lungeing too.
 
We have three ponies, two for me and one for little brother. Luckily my Mum is horsey and will exercise at least one nearly everyday, we're fortunate as well in that Mum and I have a few friends who ride well and exercise them with Mum during weekdays when it's too dark to ride after school or when I have other sporting commitments.
This means that my big two (14.1 and 14.2) get ridden virtually every day (hacking only if mum rides as she doesn't school them, that's my job!) and brother's little one (11.1) gets ridden both days on weekends either by me or little brother and occasionally after school in the winter if he wants to and it fits in.

I'm 15 (in year 11) and if I'm not at school/it's the holidays I'll ride at least two a day as little brother is 7 and is keen so will ride his pony most days himself:) This Christmas holiday we rode every day apart from Christmas day. We are expected to ride whenever possible though, Mum's belief is that we wanted ponies so we must ride them, especially as she does so much when we can't!

In our lives, the horses are the main priority, probably because we spend the most money one them! Like Charmel, we pack a lot into the week, mainly sporting. I do six hours of gymnastics which takes up Wed & Fri nights and Sat mornings along with ballet on Tue (I can manage to ride before) and I'll often swim after school on Mondays and Thursdays, little brother then does additional swimming, gymnastics and rugby along with after school clubs.
I squeeze school work in between if possible and work during break and lunch time if I have a especially busy week! I took my English Language and Maths GCSE early in November, which meant that I had to become more efficient for a short while!! I only began revising a month before though, I don't really do revision at this stage! Got an A* in Maths and an A in English, so was glad I didn't waste any riding time revising!!
 
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