Copyright The United States Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship; Intermediate Horsemanship, C Level
From: Susanna Rodell
You’ve probably been there: Last Friday I got out to the barn nice and early, all pumped for a great ride in the cool of the morning, picked up my mare’s foot to pick it out and quickly muttered a phrase that I can’t reproduce here. Her shoe was hanging on by two nails, and a third nail was quite artistically scrunched up under her sole. I called the farrier, who was, of course, out of town and wouldn’t be available until Monday. I knew if I left it as is, it would be dangerous. Two choices: duct tape it on, shut her up in her stall and hope for the best, or remove the shoe.
Fortunately, I knew how to take the shoe off thanks to a clinic I’d observed at Cohutta Highlanders Pony Club, outside Atlanta, where uber-farrier Thilo Hoffmann showed us the basics, including how to safely and correctly remove a shoe. Using a very cooperative horse (Thanks, Crush!), the kids got to do this themselves, under his direction.
If you were a Pony Clubber doing the test for the C-1 rating, you’d be required to identify the above tools.
Can you identify the 9 tools illustrated above? From left to right, post your answers in the comment section and we will post the correct answers on EN 24 hours from now. Bragging rights an EN Karma is up for grabs.
I didn’t get to do Pony Club as a kid (never heard of it) and I’ve learned heaps just by eavesdropping on my own kids’ clinics. For a lot of us, horse knowledge has come unevenly through mentors, trainers, friends, family and picking the brains of the professionals we’ve come into contact with. For me, the Pony Club manuals have become kind of like a reference library; I’ve probably learned as much from them as my kids have. If you truly want to be smarter than a Pony Clubber, they’re not a bad place to start – I know lots of lesson barns that aren’t even affiliated with Pony Club that use them. You can get them through the Pony Club bookstore. The store, located at the USPC headquarters at the Kentucky Horse Park, is actually a pretty good resource for all kinds of horse books.
Go Pony Club and Go Eventing.
