Things we did at pony club….

[Parrotperson]

9 things we got up to at Pony Club Camp that we’re sure wouldn’t happen now

Do you miss the water fights and musical rides? Read on to discover what legacy Pony Club camp has left you

www.horseandhound.co.uk

And wouldn’t get away with now.

Well. I got up to a few things as an instructor I’m pretty sure would get me thrown out now!!

The best one was at a residential camp.

So fed up were we instructors of non compliant children we snuck out in the middle of the night and moved all the ponies so when the kids got up to go and muck out all you could hear was the wailing and screaming of the kids looking for their ponies!

We also used to let the older kids sneak off to jump hedges around the venue just for a bit of fun! I shudder to think now.

And pity the poor (newbie) instructor who on the very first lesson of the very first day decided to let her ride do pony club games (with the rest of us tutting away happily!)

She had so many accident forms to fill out at lunchtime she missed all the nice nosh!!

 

[The Xmas Furry]

I am saying nothing .... I have absolutely no idea who took the senior ride out at midnight to run their horses & ponies up the line of steeplechase fences at Tweseldown and then go and see if there actually was a ghost at Lord Tweseldown's ditch.......
I did coach some lovely nippers at camps

 

[Parrotperson]

I am saying nothing .... I have absolutely no idea who took the senior ride out at midnight to run their horses & ponies up the line of steeplechase fences at Tweseldown and then go and see if there actually was a ghost at Lord Tweseldown's ditch.......
I did coach some lovely nippers at camps

Excellent. . Yes tbf we had good kids really. I think they must’ve been very bad for us to steal their ponies away but it was quite amusing!

 

[EventingMum]

PC camp was amazing, ours was held at a racecourse with lovely stables. The last night of camp there was always a water fight. We got up to all sorts of mischief which may have included sneaking alcohol in and sneaking into the boys rooms and smearing boot polish on their faces as they slept - just two that spring to mind! I also went back for several years as an instructor, the kids used to wonder how I sussed out all their antics so quickly, I didn't let on I had done everything they got up to and worse myself as a member

 

[Esmae]

The last camp I went to (100 years ago) everyone got totally drunk on cider and we all woke up to find piles of smashed kids all over the field!!

 

[Goldenstar]

Camp was such fun .
When a got older I was on site at night as the person in charge of the watching over the ponies .
That was fun but in a different way .

 

[Celtic Fringe]

My son, now aged 29, went to PC camps in his mid-teens. At one the group of boys had a bareback jumping competition in headcollars. They called it a day at ~ 4ft (1.20m). I'm not sure if there was a winner or anyone had an 'involuntary dismount' but great fun was had by all! Would definitely not be allowed now.....

 

[humblepie]

We didn’t get up to much. Did eat a lot of iced buns. Junior camp obviously!

 

[Sealine]

I love reading these stories. I never had a pony as a child and I still get jealous when I see all the children at the yard going off to camp every summer. I’ve done a few camps as an adult and really enjoyed them but I’m sure it’s not quite the same.

 

[Red-1]

I was so lucky as our camp was held at Chatsworth. The ponies/horses were all turned out together in a big field, there were no stables. For tacking up etc, they were tied in lines to posts that adults knocked in, sadly a pony pulling back from being threatened/kicked by their neighbour was a daily occurance, and then the stake was pulled up so there was a pony/horse cantering up the line with a sharp stake attached...

One of the members brought her groom with her. The groom got off with one of the young instructors. They made noise, we all knew LOL.

We did a grand ride across the park. We ended it with a group canter. Many ponies were very excited and my friend's went loopy and jumped a sheep.

Mum bought me and my friend a 2 person tent. Turns out they don't really fit 2 people in with all the associated kit. I had a joint hired cattle type box to get there, it stopped all over picking up us kids who didn't have out own transport; it left once were were there so there was no other storage for us.

Camp had a portable toilet but no washing facilities. I could barely be with myself by the end of the week LOL. 24 hour deodorant isn't cumulative with no washing facilities. I guess that wouldn't be allowed now. It was a hot week too.

Many ponies went loopy as the young instructor did the feeds. The ponies/horses ate much more than they were supposed to and the oats were the most used ingredient. Saddles were stored in the marquee, on jump poles, 2 deep. They fell a few times, all the top saddles and a heavy pole falling on the lower ones.

We tried Lacrosse and did a musical ride as a demo on the last day, to The Floral Dance. We also did our next Pony Club Test, and a Riding and Road Safety test. We did a little XC, but it was a made up course with show jumps and a little brush. Tack inspections! The member with the groom had it easy, she also had a box with living!

Camp was fabulous! I did 2 years and one year got the most improved horse/rider.

Just thinking about it, I am transported back. Last night disco in the marquee, flashing lights and most of us like zombies from exhaustion. Final day, tidy up so the field was restored to an empty field.

Everyone should do camp!

 

[little_critter]

I used to beg, borrow or steal a pony for camp. It was the only pony club thing I did all year.
We had the option of ponies stables or ponies turned out.
I bet nowadays you wouldn’t take a random mix of ponies and chuck them in a field together for a week. The only precaution was the hind shoes had been removed.

 

[Bobthecob15]

I used to beg, borrow or steal a pony for camp. It was the only pony club thing I did all year.
We had the option of ponies stables or ponies turned out.
I bet nowadays you wouldn’t take a random mix of ponies and chuck them in a field together for a week. The only precaution was the hind shoes had been removed.

No they do still let them all go out together they just have to have no hind shoes ours has backs so she's coming home each day

 

[Jellymoon]

I think they still have a lot of fun at camp! My kids did their last camp only a couple of years ago when they were in a big, well-known pony club which shall remain nameless!! The camp is run by a great bunch of parents who liked to have a lot of fun and were not too precious with the kids.

The stories my kids now tell me…not much has changed!!

 

[Tarragon]

I remember going down the jumping lane with no stirrups and your hands on your head, then again bareback on somebody else's horse and I always seem to get the one with the razor sharp withers.
This was at Suffolk Hunt pony club in Ickworth park back in the 1970's.
I never camped. The ponies were stabled there, and we used to come back every day.

 

[Carlosmum]

We had camp at Tweseldon. I was sent home early one year because my pony was coughing, nowadays we'd call it COPD. Pillow fights after lights out, sneaking round to the boys, camp beds and plastic plates. Stable inspections, not a blade of straw out of place. I remember it costing about £60 for the whole week, I'd hate to think what it costa these days. Such fun!

 

[Annagain]

Ours all got turned out together, we had to be there for a certain time on the Sunday to have their back shoes pulled. If we missed that and the ponies had shoes on they couldn't go out. THere was a wooded area in the middle of the 6 fields we used so all the ponies would be tied to a tree each. Ours were only 5 minutes away so we walked to get them every morning -- past the local shop so would buy chocolate supplies for everyone (nobody in our pony club was older than about 15 so we weren't interested in booze) - which was lucky because every year there'd be a pony who was chased into bushes and had thorn in its eye. We also walked to the local swimming pool every evening - only 10 minutes away - so everyone was clean. My friend and I were the two oldest for the last couple of years and were allowed home for a shower instead which was a major luxury as the swimming pool was always freezing and the showers were terrible. The PC fields were in a fab location, just on the edge of the village, everybody who went lived within a few miles and hacked there. There are houses on the pony club fields now and all the local kids have to be boxed 15miles away for any pony club activities.

 

[honetpot]

I can remember doing breakfast duty and the smell of horse stench could be smelt 20ft away from the queue, it was held on a racecourse so there were good showers but no one seemed to use them.
They had the headless horseman in the evening.

 

[Chuffy99]

Ran PC camps for several years, the year the little treasures used their aerosols as flame throwers among the tents is one that really sticks out

 

[FitzyFitz]

I remember being very disappointed when in my last year they stopped letting us swap ponies in lessons. I always had the smallest and feistiest pony in the ride and it was always a laugh watching the girls who could afford more civilised beasts trying to ride mine!

Senior camp was stables but when I was in juniors they chucked all the ponies in a field together. I don't remember any injuries but as it was a MASSIVE grassy field they were all too busy scoffing to get into mischief!
For some reason the rule was the head collars and leadropes had to be in boxes by the gate, but seperate boxes, one for headcollars one for ropes. Parent volunteers caught the ponies in the morning and it was absolutely garunteed your pony would be tied up somewhere completely random and wearing someone elses headcollar and a seperate someones leadrope, so sorting that was always the first activity

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I went once: in 1976 which was a terribly hot summer.

We just had a field; no frills back then. I had non-horsey parents and we didn't have any transport so myself and pony were billeted at a yard in the vicinity, it was about 30mins ride to get there and back every day I seem to remember, it wasn't just "up the road".

I remember when the transport co/horsebox dropped us off, they weren't really sure of the address and said Ohh it's that white house up there on the hill (we think)....... we were dropped off in this remote location - all on our todd just me and pony - and noh it wasn't the "white house on the hill", it was several farms along the valley. No mobile phones or anything in those days - we were just dumped in the middle of nowhere!; and I'll never forget that awful feeling that my teenaged self felt at what the heck do we do now. Imagine if that happened nowadays! Anyway we DID find our way to where we were supposed to be and all was well.

Camp didn't thrill me. No fun, no frills. There wasn't any staying overnight. Everyone else's parents had loads of £££ (or so it seemed) and they'd be boxed in every day by loving parents who'd stand around supporting them. I was the non-horsey kid who didn't have the shade of a horsebox to stand in out of the glaring sun, and it was frankly awful. There WAS a stream and some trees right at the bottom of where the camp was - but you got eaten alive by horseflies if you went down there for any shade.

Mornings we had instruction. Afternoons was all "Games". Which I hated, and my pony I had at that time just wasn't suited to it, he was a darling but rushing around just wasn't his thing.

And to top it all I failed C Test: everyone else in my Ride passed it but I didn't. My little pony had had enough of being on the hard ground and wouldn't supply a correct canter lead, so we failed. I was offered to do the Test on another pony, but out of loyalty to mine said no thanks.

And that was the end of Camp. I didn't go again. Was 15 when I went and can't say I enjoyed it overmuch, and certainly in no hurry to go back again.

The PC I was in now go to a local equestrian college with tip-top facilities.

 

[Snowfilly]

Unfortunately our local pony club was vile, kids used to end leaving halfway through each camp in tears from the bullying from older members and instructors both.

I don’t know if it’s any different now, but basically unless you were on the teams, camp, like everything else, consisted of either being ignored or laughed at.

 

[nagblagger]

Must admit i hated pony club, they told me i needed to buy a 'new pony club ' saddle at the first rally, most of the members obviously had money and looked down on my coloured part arab, this was in the 1970s when coloureds were definitely not in fashion! Then, as my horse didn't want to trot in a circle they sent me home, riding alone along the roads (had ridden there with sister and friend) - that was my experience which has stuck with me all these years so must say i have never been a fan of pony club.

 

[Annagain]

I remember being very disappointed when in my last year they stopped letting us swap ponies in lessons. I always had the smallest and feistiest pony in the ride and it was always a laugh watching the girls who could afford more civilised beasts trying to ride mine!

Senior camp was stables but when I was in juniors they chucked all the ponies in a field together. I don't remember any injuries but as it was a MASSIVE grassy field they were all too busy scoffing to get into mischief!
For some reason the rule was the head collars and leadropes had to be in boxes by the gate, but seperate boxes, one for headcollars one for ropes. Parent volunteers caught the ponies in the morning and it was absolutely garunteed your pony would be tied up somewhere completely random and wearing someone elses headcollar and a seperate someones leadrope, so sorting that was always the first activity

When we did our B test we had to swap horses. Nobody wanted to ride mine - they said he'd make them look bad. He spent a lot of time on his back legs and needed riding diplomatically to say the least. I think they all thought I was a useless rider (mainly because I 'let him' do it - I didn't but he was always completely balanced and the more you tried to stop him, the worse he got) until they sat on him (we all swapped regularly onto each other's horses in preparation for our tests) and realised how difficult he could be (he refused to even move for one girl who decided he needed someone much firmer than me and with another who really tried to bully him, he moved his front legs but not his back until he was almost on the floor!) and how I invariably got a tune out of their (mostly very easy) horses. He had ways of making people he didn't like look very daft indeed. All the PC mums were offering me all sorts of "better schooled" horses for me to do the test on like thy were doing me a favour because they didn't want him in the pool for their kids to potentially ride. I refused as, knowing him like I did, I felt far more confident on him that any other horse. He was very silly but not dangerous so they had no grounds to force me not to bring him. I was the only one who passed that year and the girl who was given him to ride still blames me 30 years later!

The same girls were also mortified when, during a stable management session on conformation they asked the instructor which of our horses had the best conformation and she said mine was one of the finest examples of a Section D she had seen in a long time. He'd had a successful showing career before I had him (curtailed when he developed sweet itch) so I knew this but they saw this 14hh cob thing with feathers flying everywhere and immediately thought their warmblood and tb types were better.