Bear Valley Springs

Bear Valley Springs News

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Bear Tracks March 2019

Five of our Pony Club members traveled to Buellton in January to compete in the Regional Quiz Rally. Quiz is a USPC discipline where teams compete against each other across the five knowledge-based phases: Barn, Classroom, Mega-Room, Stations, and Written Test. The competition does not include any mounted competition. Our Junior (age 12 and under) team won first place. Our single Senior (over 12) member was placed on a “scratch” team which placed second in that division. We are very proud of how well everyone did!

In January, our club’s District Commissioner, Treasurer, and one youth member traveled to Stamford, Connecticut, for the United States Pony Club Equine Symposium and Convention. This event is held each year at the end of January and provides leadership training, informative workshops, and opportunities for networking with other Pony Club members and leaders across the country. The Convention is held in a different region each year; next year it will be in Seattle, Washington.

This year during the Symposium and Convention, our youth member Erika Williams presented a literature review of equine pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (also known as PPID or equine Cushing’s disease) at the Research Project Fair. A total of nineteen projects were entered from throughout the US and Erika won second place in the Literature Review category. Congratulations!

One of the exciting things to come out of this year’s convention was the development of three Western Discipline tracks: Western Dressage, Gymkhana, and Western Trail. Debbie Swarens was appointed to the national Western Dressage Committee and looks forward to expanding this discipline here at home.

Some of the events we are planning are a Spring Break Day Camp, a field trip to Tejon Ranch, and, of course, our annual Mule and Horse Show to be held on August 2, 3, 4, 2019.

The idea for Pony Club started in Great Britain in 1928. The founders recognized the need for any child with an interest to have access to excellent equestrian education and training. The idea was so successful that it soon spread to other countries. In 1954, Pony Club came to the United States and today flourishes in 31 countries with 130,000 members! An impressive percentage of the world’s top riders in international competition are graduates of Pony Club.

Pony Club is the largest equestrian educational organization in the world.  This is where it all begins! The cornerstones of our foundation are education, safety, sportsmanship, stewardship and FUN. Members learn riding and the care of horses through mounted sports. The skills, habits and values instilled through horsemanship will apply to every part of a member’s life. There is no maximum age limit on membership in Pony Club. We encourage “seniors” to try it out!

BVS Pony Club meets Saturday mornings from 9:00 to noon at the BVS Equestrian Center for mounted and unmounted lessons.