Berriewood Farm

      Pony Club

2008 

The Berriewood Pony Club Centre has been going since 2000. We currently have about 50 members.

We hope that everyone is enjoying the activities - they certainly seem to be. We welcome any comments or suggestions you have. We would like to organise activities to suit you! If you would like your child to attend a morning and an afternoon activity they are welcome to stay here with us over the lunch break. BUT PLEASE MAKE SURE WE ARE AWARE THEY ARE STAYING.

You will see from the following program that we plan to continue the ‘Playing with Ponies’ (PWP) sessions. These are mainly aimed at giving young people the chance to handle ponies and familiarise themselves with some of the other activities involved with caring for ponies. We will continue to run the badges in these sessions. Children will not automatically gain a badge at each session - some topics do require more work than others and some children will have more experience than others.

Badges

There are a total of 20 badges to gain. There are 12 Equine ones and 10 General Knowledge and Countryside ones. We will be working our way through them throughout the year.

2 new ones have been introduced – lungeing and plaiting. We have found that some of them are easier than others. Repetition of some tasks - particularly bandaging and tacking up is necessary. Children have achieved over 300 badges to date. The Pony Club has recently added ten more mini achievement badges.

Tests

There are a series of riding and stable management tests -

Please ask for a sheet.

To date children have achieved over 240 tests at Bronze or silver level and 50 at D or D+ Level. The Silver tests usually require some extra training for the Stable Management. Ask for a Pony Club Extra leaflet and a copy of the test. We also have had 4 children who have achieved their Pony Club C Test.

Supervised Loans

These are now available some Sunday afternoons and some other dates in the holidays. Children should have a minimum of Bronze 3, 2 & 1 and D Test and be 8 years old. See programme for dates and times. The numbers on the days are limited.

Competitions

We have some competitions held in the school holidays, either as part of Advanced Own A Pony for the older children, or as separate activities