Does your child want to join Pony Club?

Pony Club is a worldwide equine educational organization for children with approximately 7,000 members in the United States. It was founded in England in 1928 by foxhunters who wanted to teach children how to ride and properly care for their ponies and horses. The club has mounted (riding) meetings and unmounted meetings. Mounted meetings can be lesson-type instruction or fun and games on horseback. Unmounted meetings involve education and activities that promote good care and management of horses. Covered Bridge Pony Club holds meetings at several barns in the Prospect area and all members are invited to attend any or all of the meetings as they wish. It is not a requirement to own a pony or horse to be a member of Pony Club, but access to a horse is essential. Therefore, if you do board at or ride in the lesson program with one of our Pony Club coaches at one of the "Covered Bridge barns", please read the information on Pg.2 about how the mounted meetings operate.

    **Note: We request that members take riding lessons from one of our PC-approved coaches. By using this approach, we ensure that the kids all get the same level of instruction from coaches who know the USPC Standards, can prepare the child for the testing levels and be sure that they have been taught the "Pony Club Way" of horsemanship: Sarah Younger or Debbie Iezzi at Stone Place, Susan Harris or assisants at Spring Run, and Carrie Barrick at Paramont.

 

Our annual Club fundraiser is on the 2nd or 3rd Sunday in March every year - the Covered Bridge Combined Test, which is our horse show at Stone Place Stables. This is our only fundraiser of the year and the proceeds from this show fund a big portion of our Pony Club activities. These include: riding instruction for mounted meetings, travel expenses for officers to attend required meetings and to prep kids for ratings, club contributions to our families to help with Rally expenses, purchase of equipment for the kids to use at Rally, copying study materials for Quiz, and so on. Most of the annual dues that we pay go to the Regional and National Pony Club offices, so we rely on this income for our operating budget.

We need every family to ensure they are available to help during this weekend in March - please remember to keep that date free every year. We have about 60 jobs to fill, so we ask that all parents from each family help if at all possible since we only average around 30 families in our club. Quite a few families work both days to help. We cannot operate this show without your support!  Some pony clubs request as many as 30 volunteer hours a year from each family, so we feel that our request is quite reasonable in comparison.  We will send an email out before the show date with the CT Jobs List. If you are difficult to reach by email, please contact us. Don't worry - many jobs do not require any "horse" knowledge at all (see the attached "jobs" examples).

 

In addition to the mounted and unmounted meetings at your barn and at Peggi’s house for Quiz practice all winter, Pony Club offers several activities during the year that we strongly encourage our members to participate in. MegaRally is held at the Kentucky Horse Park in June, Quiz held in late winter and USPC Championships in July. For a detailed explanation of these events, see "What is Rally" and "What is Quiz" on our website: www.coveredbridgepc.org.

As is true of all Pony Club activities, these are completely staffed by parents of the participating children, so we must count on at least one parent from each family to help during the event in order for these wonderful activities to be available for our children.

 

Please visit the "Newsletters" section on our website to get a feel for how much fun these kids have at Rally and Quiz - they are wonderful, challenging activities that build character and life-long friendships. Please acknowledge that you are willing to undertake this commitment to our club by signing below. We hope your child benefits from and enjoys Pony Club as much ours have.  Welcome to Covered Bridge Pony Club!

Parent signature and date ____________________________________________________

Return these pages with your other membership papers.

(please scroll down for further info on pages 3 & 4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Print and keep the following pages for your reference -

www.coveredbridgepc.org gives PC event dates, detailed explanations of Rally and Quiz, list of shows both local and distant, PC contact numbers, etc.

Send forms and/or checks (payable to CBPC) -Peggi Bindner, 1308 Meadowridge Trail, Goshen, KY 40026

Pony Club Mounted Meetings:

Each one of the Covered Bridge barns schedules mounted meetings according to the days that the rings are available and instructors can be booked (with the exception of certain times of the year when members may not be available such as the middle of the summer or holiday breaks from school.) The Barn Mom/Dad who schedules the meetings will send out an email with the meeting days and set a deadline for RSVPs from the members. Each member is responsible for responding in a timely manner for each meeting so that riding groups can be organized for that meeting. If a member wants to rent a school horse for the lesson, they must notify the Barn Mom in order to check for availability, submit a check to the farm for the fee, catch the horse, tack it up and take proper care of it after the lesson. It is the responsibility of the member and their family to prepare for meetings, not that of anyone else in the Club, including the instructor for the day. Families whose children have no experience riding or handling horses will need to arrange for enough lessons with an instructor of their choice that they and/or their child are able to independently prepare a rental horse for the mounted meetings.

*Parents of D1 and D2 children must be present during the mounted meetings.

Rider Qualifications for Rally:

Eventing Rally includes riding over cross-country jumps out in a large field, so in order to ensure your child's safety, we require an instructor certificate from lower level riders stating that your child is prepared to ride at that level by the time of our Rally Organizational Meeting in April. A copy of the certificate is included in your membership papers - do not complete until spring.

Annual CBPC Championships:

These awards are presented at the Annual Banquet in December every year by rating level, so we have D1 up through Upper Level (HB-B) winners. Points are earned by participation and individual placings in Quiz, our Combined Test and MegaRally, with bonus points for Games and/or qualifying for USPC Championships. See our home web page for more info.

 

Examples of Pony Club "Jobs"

The "Combined Test" Horse Show -　Everyone needed!

Misc:

Scorer's assistants.

Food Booth - chair the Food Booth or man the booth for part of the day

Post-show cleanup

 

Walk/Trot Division: (this class is held during the afternoon)

Help set-up and take down the jumps for this class

Scribe for Jump Judge - enter scores on sheet for the Judge

 

Dressage:

Scribes (4) - write down the Judge's comments. Learn what judges look for in a dressage ride.

Bit-checkers (2) - experience needed for this job.

Ring stewards (4) - call riders to the ring from the warm-up area

Runners (4) - Pick up dressage tests every few rides and deliver to Scoring and take refreshments to the judges and scribes.

Ring set-up on Saturday. Requires 3 people who are not afraid to insert poles into cones.　

Label dressage tests with rider names & numbers.

 

Stadium:

Scribe for Jump Judge (enter scores on sheet for the Judge)

Timer (uses a stopwatch to time the jumping rounds)

Ring stewards (2) - call riders to the ring from the warm-up area

Jump crews during show - always includes the older kids who aren't showing.

Course set-up on Saturday - set up jumps and flag them. Needs some men.

Cedar brush for jump course set-up

Announcers

Awards/ribbons - pass them out after each division

Additional Activities and Volunteer Opportunities

Quiz Rally and Mega Rally: Each participating club is required to provide volunteers to work. All Rallies are staffed by parents, so please be aware that you are expected to help at each Rally attended by your child, but we also want all children to be able to go, so if you cannot plan a day off of work that week, please talk to your DC.　

Barn Manager: Schedule and supervise PC meetings at your barn. Supervise a barn meeting when your Barn Manager cannot attend.

Annual Awards Banquet & Holiday Party: (early December)

Chair - buy the food and refreshments; supervise setup and cleanup

Helpers

 

Quiz Study Groups: (meet weekly November through February)

'C' level groups may need supervising parents for each meeting if not meeting with Peggi, our Quiz Coordinator.