Pony Club Picnic Rally

Today I have been teaching at my favourite rally of the year, Ledbury Hunt Pony Club Picnic rally.

I had 9 seniors in my ride due to an Instructor shortage misunderstanding. We began with some flat work, tidying up positions and working on the horses way of going, they all worked really hard on this, several of them were on new horses so it made it all the more interesting to teach. They were meant to be analysing each other but I think Bella did most of this!

After a yummy lunch donated by all the parents we went XC. I had to explain to my group that due to having so many in the ride it would be difficult to do more flat work in a small arena, they were so disappointed!!!!

We had fun getting the younger (and a few of the older ones) horses over the new lead rein fences, they were so spooked by these dinky new looking fences, it was quite amusing, we hoped no one was looking. Then we moved on to the XC course proper. As the ground was hard we kept to a few select technical fences, steps, water, skinnies and a coffin. They all jumped well and picked up on the importance of having their horses balanced on the approach and depart, which was especially important as the ground was firm and the grass a little slippy due to the rain over the weekend.

All the riders finished our day by jumping the horses with balance and confidence through the rather fierce looking coffin. A good day with nice weather and no one fell off!