05/27/2024
Incredibly proud of these kids competing n their first pony club rally as a team and grateful to Shelly Nevins and the Run of the Mill pony Club for putting on such a great event.
I’m exhausted as a center administrator, coach, mom, chauffeur and helped with ring crew and filled in to design and set the course for the combined test jumping phase for the next day. I handed my course design to Mason and Luis who learned how to set a course and they knocked it out of the park.
This was their first rally for Mason and Luis, and a first for Masons Pony Blaze who made his jumping debut at the age of 20 years young!! And these kids really impressed me as they have to do much of this as a team. parents & coaches aren’t allowed in the barn after rally starts at 6:30 am. So the stable manager has the responsibility of keeping everyone on schedule to get to their inspections and riding events and overseeing the team tack room and stalls. Lily knocked it out of the park posting a schedule of turnout inspection times, warm up times, time to walk the course w me as their coach, and ride times. Everyone made it on time to all their scheduled events!
Last Sunday they spent 6 hours at the barn pulling together our rally Kit and required equipment for their team Tack room and I was proud to see a lot of “exceeds standards “ on their score cards.
There were 11 teams that competed on Saturday with over 50 competitors. They won 2nd in horse management and 1st w combined riding scores overall against more experienced competitors! Marshmellow and Rachel won their hunter classes and Luis and Clyde ended up reserve champion in the cross rails division and Mason and Blaze were 3rd in each of their classes in a very competitive poles division.
With this being a championship qualifier rally to go to championships in Kentucky, this was the one and only chance for Rachel to get it done in the .75 meter jumping on our Marshmellow, which they accomplished with only one rail down in 3 rounds and no time penalties. So now we have 3 members qualified!! Luis qualified for Quiz rally in March and Lily qualified as a stable manager.