The Pony Club Championships

Every year the Pony Club Championships are held in August. This year a team from Talygarn competed in the centre member competition. 2 children over 12yrs ride one horse and two children 12yrs ride another horse. The team consisted of Carys Morgan Sarah Blake Carys Reville and Sophie Goddard and the horses were Fred and Buffy. Wednesday night I didn’t bother going to bed as we had to be up at 2am to get the horses ready to go. After packing the lorry and loading the horses we left at 3.15am. Steve drove, Amelia (the team trainer), Carys Reville, her father and myself travelled up in the lorry. We arrived at 7am and met up with Sarah, Carys M and Sophie. 19 teams took part in the competition, each competitor had to ride a dressage test and jump a course of fences and they were judged on their riding. Carys M and Sarah have done quite a lot of competing including the Novice challenge Dressage and Team Jumping but Sophie and Carys R are less experienced. The Tack and Turn was at 8.30am and Buffy and Fred looked very smart all plaited and washed. Sarah was first to do her Jumping at 9.35am and last to go with her Dressage at 3pm the rest were spread out in between. Amelia was rushing back and fore between rings (which were a field apart) making sure they had warmed up and knew what they were doing. Whilst Steve & Gaynor Blake and myself sat in the sun with our cans of strongbow. At 4pm all the girls had to be dressed and the horses tacked up and in the ring for the presentation. Amelia and I had a look at the scores and we were sure that they would get placed. They announced the teams in reverse order starting at 10th place by the time 4th place had been announced I think the team were feeling a little disappointed so the look of shock and surprise on their faces was amazing when they were called out into third place. Steve and Gaynor went into the ring to hold the horses whilst the team took their place on the podium to be presented with their rosettes and Salvers

It was a very emotional moment and Sophie’s mum was even shedding a tear or two. Next came the individual placings. Carys Reville took 4th best Junior and Sarah Blake took 3rd best Senior. The girls brought bright pink commenerative pony club sweat shirts with their names on the back so you cant miss them on the yard now. Even Todd (our Jack Russell) got to compete in some show jumping although he wasn’t too impressed and knocked two fences down. After a stop at McDonalds and a long drive home we arrived back after 10pm. It was a fantastic day and we are very proud of the team all the pictures can be seen in the gallery www.talygarnec.co.uk

Posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.