Why I will only occasionally do Pony Club events.... [mild rant!]

rotters13

rotters13

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So I took young horse to Tweseldown -sp?- recently and following on from a post below about BE and youngsters I feel the need to put my two pence worth in!

Anyway, took young horse to Tweseldown to have a nice confidence giving round over 2ft 6 - 2ft 9 at a Pony Club event. Now assuming it was the beginning of the season I assumed that it would be a nice flowing course with no ridiculous questions. My issues with the course:

A) Most of the course was 2ft 3 and then there would suddenly be a full up 2ft 9 fence.
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B) It was full of twisty loops, you had no chance to get into a rhythm. eg. Coffin sharp right hand to get in line for a up to height skinny. The timed section was in a ridiculous tight loop part with 5 fences within about 10 strides.
C) From a fairly straight forward if unrhythmical course we were suddenly given two full up steps out of water. I think that one step is fine and I'd have been happy with that, but the second step was blatantly over height and on a angle which I was very unhappy with.
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Everyone I spoke to thought that this question was very unfair so I am not alone with my grumpiness. What annoyed me even more was that the open class water was easier, run in run out with a jump on either side.
D) The collecting ring was possibly the most dangerous one I have ever seen. Small children flying everywhere without checking around to see what was happening.

Now what's annoying is that at some pony club events you get a lovely course appropriate to the height in terms of technicality and at some others the course was designed predominantly by a muppet. Now I understand why this happens; the bigger courses for pony club are at mainly 2ft6 upwards so they will inevitably use more technical aspects. But it is very difficult to find courses that are suitable and the one aspect that BE offers is consistently within courses.

My opinion so I ask you all kindly not to kill me!
 
re the twisty loops, thats how theyre built now... i have jumped round some horrendous courses that are so tight and twisty and need a lot of control no more galloping...
luckily i dont have small children anymore as i do intermediate/open but i know what you mean, i still get people lunging horses that are bucking in areas they shouldnt be, people just standing in the way argh lol,.....
but i enjoy it!
 
Exactly my point when people say U18s shouldn't be competing BE - noc consistency I did a 3ft 6 event last year the XC was not that big - 3ft 3 max and then the SJ was 1m 15
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It has put me off going there this year and I will go BE that weekend instead.
 
My OH did a PC ODE last Saturday, and the course included a double of portable skinnies (ie the really narrow 1/2 rolltop type, about 3ft wide at the most) in the middle of a field with no screening at either side.

Needless to say, there was a handful (about 5) in each class who could jump these, everyone else ran out, or even a couple of horses fell (rider trying to hold them on the right line and slipped over).

Completely unnecessary, and I will be thinking v carefully before I do another PC event.

FIona
 
PC is the most inconsistent thing out there! I have done loads of PC events and all the xc are stupid. Make no sense. Take two weeks ago did a PN level course and it had a up to height/width hay rack followed by one stride to cheese wedge skinny?? Never seen anything like it!
 
The ones we do are either senior (for the 'proper' ponies, lol) which are used as deciders for the PC teams so are well up to height and usually run round BE courses (ie Blackwater soon) or junoir which are quite little and good confidence boosters. I love all the comps run within my PC and think they are very well run. You just have to choose a good PC, imo.
 
What actually qualifies a person to build a pony club xc course? Do they have to attend any training? In my area they seem to be pony club parents with no xc riding experience of their own. You can tell a deficiency in understanding of xc riding just by walking the courses. So if they do attend training sessions, it's not working!
 
We entered a 3' pc hunter trial last year and walked the course to find that there was nothing over 2'6", most were 2'3"! The so called 3'6" class ran over the intro course with a couple of pn fences thrown in. When we questioned this the response was that it was early in the season and they didn't want to put anyone off! This was mid May so hardly early! They grudgingly allowed us to change to the bigger class providing we ran HC - this was an open comp - follow that logic.......
 
I know were your coming from with the warming up, i was at west wilts at a PC the other month adn some girl just ran into my little horse and i thought her massive thing was gona squish us! she didn't even say sorry and just gave me evils! i wa sin a strop for the whole night haha!
 
I agree with you entirely, we have been to a novice pc event where you went down 3 steps, 3 strides into a skinny double, hmm really novice. Daughter did her 1st intros at 13 and i was very impressed with them, i would rather she did BE now, at least you know what you're not going to get.
 
[ QUOTE ]
What actually qualifies a person to build a pony club xc course? Do they have to attend any training? In my area they seem to be pony club parents with no xc riding experience of their own. You can tell a deficiency in understanding of xc riding just by walking the courses. So if they do attend training sessions, it's not working!

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm . . . . well put it this way I was asked to stride the doubles (a 16 year old with PC and a small amount of BE competition experience - definitely no training!) at one of our PC shows last year for the SJ - you would have thought a tape measure didn't exist!
 
The problems encountered are symptomatic of PC across all disciplines - it is a wonderful organisation run by volunteers with (generally) the best of intentions and very varying levels of experience. It is all to easy to "outgrow" PC in any discipline and to be attracted to the usually more consistent organisation, standards and structure of BD, SJ and BD. Nothing has changed in 25 years when my parents sent me off to BSJA as unaff and PC jumping was so badly built and run.

All of that said, some branches have experienced personnel who can build, train and coach to the highest standard and others who don't do a valuable job getting younger or less experienced riders going.
 
I actually don't mind PC courses, well some of them at least. As I am never going to go any higher than PN (too much of a wimp
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) I enjoy going round courses that ahve interesting stuff, but don't have massive ditches etc that would get on a novice course.

I am all for tricksy turny fences, soon catches out those that have no control
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what i find is you enter the smallest class in ode ie 2ft3 to 2ft6 and cross-country is still quite complicated and scary jumps that in my opinion dont really need to be there surely the dressage scores and sj sorts the gd from less gd. for once i would just like a nice flowing cross-country course which me and my horse can gain confidence with. might be doing ht at weekend but will be walking course before i enter.
 
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