No stirrups? No problem! Go Sherbie (Sarah Walker Photography)
This month I decided that being an adult was far to hard. So I went back in time and got on my childhood pony, Sherbet, and played pony club games. And it was great.
Let me give you a brief background on the horse we affectionately call ‘Devil pony’. Sherbet was purchased locally when I was 8 years old and it all started off quite amicably… until she decided she no longer wanted to be ridden.
Imagine little 8 year old me… walking into the paddock with merely a lead rope as defence against the dark lord(ess). She would see me coming and would begin to walk away (as many perfectly nice ponies do!) and would keep doing so until she got bored of this futile exercise as a persistent little me trailed her around the paddock. It was now that her true (black) colours would begin to (ominously) shine. It was now that the true level of her evil was shown… because she would prick her ears forward (a rare occasion) and trot towards me!
This would lull me into a false (very false) sense of security as I thought, naively, that she was trotting up to me to say hello! So I would keep walking happily toward her. Then the trot would become faster and faster… it was then I became wary. Then the trot became a canter and those cute pricked ears would suddenly spin back and lie flat on her neck. At this point, all thought of catching the pony went out the window. Not just out the window, in fact they where sucked out by a category 5 cyclone and then run over 50 times by road trains. I would begin to madly swing my rope and yell at the top of my lungs in terror. Yet the evil witch in the west would keep coming. With my eyes on stalks, my heart in my throat and my legs mysteriously no longer under my control (frozen on the spot), I would watch as my charming pony showed the whites of both her teeth and eyes as she slid to a halt. She would the stand up on her hind legs and loom above me like the dragon she was. Then if I didn’t hightail out of the paddock like tiny Usain Bolt, she would calmly put all four feet on the ground and reluctantly acknowledge my bravery in her performance and let me clip the lead rope onto her halter. But not without a nip on the arm of course!
See?! I TOLD you she was possessed! Even 12 years later and she is still evil as! Bethany was riding at this point, taking the brat for a spin in the faster races. (Alison Maloney Photography)
Like I said, she was an evil, EVIL pony. But she could be good every now and again and once I mastered her ‘quirks’ she was quite the performance pony and even showjumped to 90cm and competed to intro eventing. She then was just an all-round farm pony until Emily played games on her for the last few years, achieving so much success that she was eventually selected for the Tasmanian games team to compete at Pony Club Nationals two years in a row.
Emily honing her skills ready for PC Nationals in SA on Pretzel (Sarah Walker Photography)
So back to present, I rode the chocolate sprinkles pony (she was brown, but had white flecks throughout her coat) at the games day and had a great time! My team was a mixture of people (some of which I had never met) and we all had a fantastic time! Good luck to the Tasmanian PC team who travel to South Australia in a couple of weeks (the games day was a fundraiser) and I hope you all have a brilliant trip!
Above - Spider legs from Poppy! Baby pony is learning where her legs are! (Hayley Atkins Photography)
Below - Funky Chunky in the 1.10cm! Love the partnership that is forming here. (Juliette Sherrard Photography)
I have also been doing a bit of showjumping as our eventing season hasn’t actually started yet and the team has been going great! The babies have been gaining some great experience in competition environments and I am so excited to get back on a XC course! The boat has also been booked ready for the next trip (Colac HT and Lakes and Craters with Sizzle the superstar!) and we are full steam ahead getting ready for that. Sizzle is feeling better than ever after a little longer than originally planned break and he will be attending his first competition back after Melbourne this weekend at the Northern Tasmanian Eventing Club Derby day. I might need to super glue myself to the saddle for that one!!
Until next time!
Alice
We've had some magic days at the snow but poor new pony Smash had to put up with a bit of a change from Sydney!! Frosts!!
