Our Pony Club was formed in 1946 by a small group of hunting folk who wanted some means of teaching their children to ride. We have close links with the Sinnington Hunt. A good number of our current members ride with the hunt, together with their parents and grandparents. We have some third generation families learning to ride and look after their ponies with us at the moment.
We currently have around 40 members of which 8 are boys. We communicate with all our members by email and have various Whatsapp groups for different disciplines and events and all bookable events are listed on our calendar page above.
We meet regularly throughout the year, the highlights of which are our Thursday Night summer rallies and our Summer Pony Club Camp. Camp takes place in August for all ages . We currently hold our camp at Hamley Hagg Farm in Appleton le Moors. This venue caters for us brilliantly, offering a good starter cross country course with loads of hills, two show jump areas, an indoor and an outdoor school and umpteen areas to school and hack. After camp we hibernate slightly to encourage our members to join in the local hunter trials and enjoy autumn hunting.
Monthly rallies for juniors and seniors run through the winter at different venues usually within our area. The tetrathlon shooting practices take place roughly fortnightly at Pockley village hall. The Dressage training begins in the early spring and the show jumping and eventing will follow shortly afterwards. At Easter we hold a full day rally for all members, and then we begin weekly rallies at Nawton Tower near Pockley in May. These run through until camp and finish at the end of August. We run the Show Jumping Classes at Duncombe Park Country Fair on the first May Bank Holiday as part of the Pony Club Junior Series but this is also open to non pony club members too.
We try to field teams at all the local pony club competitions, right from the lead rein classes up to the open and have a number of members to qualify to represent us at the Pony club Championships. We offer training to our potential area team members through rallies and team training within the disciplines. All are welcome to join in and we have a range of members from those who like to spend time learning with their ponies and friends, right through to those who like to be out competing most weekends.
We do realise that not every child would like to be the next William Fox-Pitt, Charlotte du Jardine or Ellen Whitaker, they just want to enjoy themselves on their pony. So we do our best to encourage every member to really enjoy riding and caring for their pony as well as they can, and to make great friends during these early years.
If you have any queries about any of this please contact any committee member and we will help you out .
