opinions please...letting other people ride your pony???

[ncarter]

Hi,

I have a pony who I've had for a few months and he has come on brilliantly, and shown a lot of promise jumping. However as I'm an adult I can't jump him in trailblazers etc.
There is a girl at my yard who needs a pony to jump......do I let her jump mine?

Plus points:
1) He gets out to competitions
2) I can watch him jumping
3) She gets a pony to jump

Potential negatives:
1) He may pick up bad habits from a new rider
2) I may get less chance to jump him (what I bought him for) as I wouldn't want him to be over-jumped
3) He may be at a competition when I want to ride

Thoughts please??!! Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with letting other people ride their ponies???

Thanks.

 

[DipseyDeb]

To be honest I would say no, you bought the pony for what you wanted to do, if you allow this girl to compete you could find that he will become a different pony. Let's face it we're not talking about the odd hack.

 

[vikkiandmonica]

Agree with the above. I let 2 girls ride Monica, as I am slightly too big, and was focusing more on Wings, and 1 girl is brilliant, is such a patient, calm, gentle rider and really brings out the best in Monica. The other, however, was getting too big for her boots. When she started riding her, she was good, as listened to me, and seemed to know that I knew Monica better then she did. She started getting cocky though, wouldn't warm up properly, let Monica go round with her head in the clouds (after me and the other girl worked on building her topline), and she would ride, then go home so I had to turn her out and feed her. Needless to say, only me and the other girl ride her now, and it is much better that way.

In fairness, it depends how good the girl is, as the good rider who rides Monica had proved her self in turning her own pony around, so I knew she would be good to ride Monica, whereas, in fairness, I just felt sorry for the other girl, so let it go on for too long, but it's ended now, and everyone is much happier

 

[spotty_pony]

That doesn't sound ideal to me. It sounds like you may end up not having a pony to ride yourself!

 

[DuckToller]

It would be a lovely kind thing to do, but I don't really see many points in your favour really.

I do enjoy watching other people compete on one of my daughter's outgrown ponies, but she can't ride him anymore so he is wasted otherwise - yours is not.

If he is green and you want him to have more ring experience to make him worth more because you want to sell him, then it would be good. Otherwise just go to competitions where they don't have rules on who can ride what, and enjoy him yourself.

If you can't find enough shows and you decide to let her jump, I wouldn't worry about him picking up bad habits so much because you could keep a close watch on her and make sure she has regular lessons with your instructor so she rides in a similar way to you.

 

[JoBo]

How about not jumping Trailblazers and just going out and jumping the bigger unaffiliated classes yourself? Around here we have unaffiliated up to 3ft3, and I jump the 2ft9 classes. Just an idea?
I think you should enjoy your own pony yourself!

 

[Suffolkangel]

I'm very particular as to who rides/jumps my pony, but i do have a lovely girl who jumps her at shows for me, as Angel is only 12hh so would be unfair to put her in the adult classes. Basically i do all the work at home myself so get plenty of enjoyment from her, then contact the girl to see if she is avaliable for shows, and then get even more pleasure seeing her win..
You might find it could work for you if you have a set agreement with this girl as to which competitions you pony would be avaliable for? then you would still be able to take him out to... But that does depend on how much you want your pony to compete in trailblazer competitions...