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PONY CAMP 2011
Araglen Pony Club Summer Camp started off this year with sunshine that surprised us all! We met bright and early Monday morning still on a high after the Club Pony Games evening for the annual Araglen Carnival the week before. The first job was to give a quick litter pick to get the field back to its usual green. Then we tacked up and headed for the sand arena to divide up into our groups for the week with instructors, Mary Allen, Marie O' Brien, Mairead Allen and Winnie Shannahan. We had a very enjoyable week of instruction on flat riding skills, dressage and jumping, pony care and stable management with our usual instructors as well as Michelle Allen and Corina Broderick.
During the week we also had very interesting guest speakers. Our first visitor was a Nutritionist from Gain Feeds who taught us how to feed our ponies correctly for their age, weight and workload and how their digestive systems work. She also helped us to find out the weight of our ponies with a measuring tape! Zoe Thomas, Equine Sports Therapist for the Irish Eventing Team came on Thursday and demonstrated how she works with horses to relax their muscles. She taught us how to stretch our ponies legs after exercise to make them more flexible and less prone to injury. She also discovered the reasons why some ponies had not been behaving or performing as well as usual due to injuries we were unaware of. More importantly, she demonstrated how effectively the therapy she uses could resolve the problems.
We all had a very early start on Friday morning getting our ponies perfectly groomed, hooves shone and tails and manes plaited and ourselves in our best gear for judgement of Best Turned Out. We were even surprised ourselves at how well we could all look! Edel was the very well deserved Overall Winner with perfection in every detail. After successful completion of Dressage and other pony club tests we finally got onto the challenging new course of Cross Country jumps set up by the Dads. We had great fun competing and cheering each other on! That was followed by Prize Giving and the long awaited Annual Dip in the Araglen river to knock the dust off ourselves at the end of the day!
Many thanks to Margaret Allen and Pat Horgan, our D.C.s, Mary O'Donoghue, Secretary of the Club, Doreen McCarthy and Claire O'Brien, Treasurers, and all the parents and other people from Araglen who put so much time and effort into making this another fantastic year for all of us. We are very lucky to have such support and encouragement from you all. We do appreciate it.
During the week we also had very interesting guest speakers. Our first visitor was a Nutritionist from Gain Feeds who taught us how to feed our ponies correctly for their age, weight and workload and how their digestive systems work. She also helped us to find out the weight of our ponies with a measuring tape! Zoe Thomas, Equine Sports Therapist for the Irish Eventing Team came on Thursday and demonstrated how she works with horses to relax their muscles. She taught us how to stretch our ponies legs after exercise to make them more flexible and less prone to injury. She also discovered the reasons why some ponies had not been behaving or performing as well as usual due to injuries we were unaware of. More importantly, she demonstrated how effectively the therapy she uses could resolve the problems.
We all had a very early start on Friday morning getting our ponies perfectly groomed, hooves shone and tails and manes plaited and ourselves in our best gear for judgement of Best Turned Out. We were even surprised ourselves at how well we could all look! Edel was the very well deserved Overall Winner with perfection in every detail. After successful completion of Dressage and other pony club tests we finally got onto the challenging new course of Cross Country jumps set up by the Dads. We had great fun competing and cheering each other on! That was followed by Prize Giving and the long awaited Annual Dip in the Araglen river to knock the dust off ourselves at the end of the day!
Many thanks to Margaret Allen and Pat Horgan, our D.C.s, Mary O'Donoghue, Secretary of the Club, Doreen McCarthy and Claire O'Brien, Treasurers, and all the parents and other people from Araglen who put so much time and effort into making this another fantastic year for all of us. We are very lucky to have such support and encouragement from you all. We do appreciate it.
Araglen Carnival's Family Fun Day 2010
Fun and Frolics with Araglen Pony Club
The new sand arena at Araglen Community Field was the venue last Sunday for the pony club’s event organised as part of the Carnival’s Family Fun Day.
Members of our own and neighbouring pony clubs competed in a Mini, Midi and Maxi show jumping competition. All the ponies and even one Daddy jumped superbly! Well done to all the young jockeys who impressed the spectators with their skill and tenacity.
The highlight of the day, however, was the novelty event which involved two teams of three at a time racing against each other alternately on horseback, on their own two legs and on hands and knees over a challenging obstacle course carrying “holey” buckets of water as they competed to fill two containers with water at the greatest speed! The silence of the normally peaceful glen was broken as team mates and spectators screamed directions and encouragement at the enthusiastic competitors.
Congratulations to all who took part for their sporting spirit and thank you for providing such entertainment. Thanks too to all who helped in any way to organise the event and make it such a success.
Special thanks to all the hard working members of the Araglen Carnival Committee and their huge team of volunteer helpers for providing such a wonderful venue in the Community Field for our Pony Club activities. Their tireless efforts to constantly improve the facilities resulted in the building of the new sand arena this year. It has been a great addition to the already varied terrain we have to train on. Thank you all for the hours of fun and learning together that you’ve made it possible for us to have.