Marina Fogle
‘My love affair with the Pony Club’
Among a certain cognoscenti it is well known that the most fun a child can have is provided by one humble establishment. It is not expensive and it is not exclusive. It embraces hard work, long days, grit and determination and yet it is what many teenagers spend their schooldays dreaming of.
While incomprehensible to nonmembers, there is an unspoken understanding among those in the know that the best thing a child can ever do is join The Pony Club.
The 87-year-old institution announced this week it intends to shed its stuffy image. The comedic, Thelwellesque reputation, forged by indomitable district commissioners dressed in tweed jackets and ties, barking orders at a rag tag army of dishevelled children on hairy ponies, is no longer desirable. The new chief executive, Pip Kirkby, feels that in order to thrive the club must adapt to the 21st century and embrace a more modern and liberal stance. I realise that, with membership in decline, the Pony Club is in jeopardy, and the thought makes me shudder, because more than anything else I did, it was the single most fun and important experience of my formative years; without a doubt the highlight of my childhood.
My animal, a fat, bad-tempered, middle-aged former circus pony called Jester, was at the core of my heart. In spite of his tendency to buck me off at every opportunity, to charge at me in the field if he didn’t feel like being ridden, and the occasional nip if he felt his girth was too tight, I loved him unconditionally. My room at boarding school was adorned with an enormous picture of my beloved Jester in full glory, a rosette proudly adorning his bridle, and when I shed heavy tears of homesickness I reflected that all would be okay if I were just allowed to bring my treasured pony with me.
While my friends jetted off to glamorous holiday destinations, or paraded up and down the King’s Road, I dreamt of the highlight of my year: Pony Club Camp. This annual gettogether was a week of freedom where children as young as 10 ditched the constraints of parental control and the boundaries of home life for a week in a soggy field with their faithful steed at their sides.
While the ponies had temporary stables built for them, wood shavings to cushion their weary legs and shelter from the wet British summer, us children pitched tents in the mud. The idea of 21st-century health and safety could not have been more alien to us. Toothbrushes were
packed but never used, we slept in our clothes, gleefully getting grubbier by the day, and the only washing facilities were a hose pipe in the least muddy corner of the field. If you were unceremoniously “dumped on the muck heap” (a regular form of entertainment) your only option was the water trough (although not the one used by our precious ponies).
But while our living standards were less than salubrious, we endeavoured to uphold the values of The Pony Club: our ponies came first and we religiously attended to their every whim. Our idle toothbrushes were put to better use polishing our stirrups, and while nobody thought to apply sun cream to our faces, our ponies’ hooves were carefully painted with hoof oil twice a day.
It was this mutual love of our ponies that bound us together. We regarded this disparate collection of animals rather like new parents regard their offspring: with immense pride and a fierce sense of protection. It was fine to criticise your own pony for bolting or refusing a fence, but heaven forbid that anyone else point out their shortcomings.
And in spite of outsiders’ preconceptions, pony club was classless. In a uniquely British way, the older your tack, the hairier your pony, the more threadbare your hacking jacket, the better you were respected. It was the girls who arrived with fancy ponies in shiny horseboxes who never lasted long. The Pony Club has always been made up of a mixture of children from different backgrounds. Because not a huge amount was expected of your pony, many horses were passed on with no money changing hands. Within this unique community, generosity abounded; ponies, tack, clothing and rusting trailers that were no longer needed were handed down to others, fields and stables were lent out, but with no fuss, so that from our point of view we were all equal.
Our days were spent schooling our ponies and practising our skills as riders. One year, we were unfortunate enough to have a teacher who believed fiercely in practising all the ground work instead of having fun. We despaired at endless mornings trotting in circles when all we wanted to do was tackle the cross-country. When Jester bucked her off, breaking her leg and forcing her to “resign”, the whole Pony Club rejoiced and Jester became everyone’s hero.
In the evenings we learnt about keeping our ponies safe, spotting deadly illnesses and learning which plants were poisonous to horses. (I still to this day uproot any ragwort I happen to spot). We would fervently raise money for the local pony shelter, the stories of neglect bringing hot tears of anger to our eyes.
Our teachers were a motley crew of equine enthusiasts, none of whom had probably ever heard the words “CRB check”. Ponies escaped, fields flooded, wrists were broken and teeth were knocked out – but none of this seemed to matter. It was all considered good, character-building stuff. The catering was taken care of by “the food committee” – headed by my mother. On a daily budget of £1 per child, she and her crack team of mothers would feed hungry throngs of children. The highlight, anticipated by all camp-goers, was her chocolate mousse – made with 200 raw eggs and dark chocolate. And amazingly, 30 years ago, none of us seemed to have any allergies – we thrived on a diet of nuts, seeds, sugar, gluten and dairy with reckless abandon.
I have memories of endless summers cooling off under the hose pipe, cantering through the woods, furtive midnight feasts by torchlight – and all of this shared with my beloved Jester. If you’d asked me to envisage heaven, this would have been it. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
And testament to that experience, the friendships that were forged over a shared obsession with ponies have endured the test of time. My first Pony Club friend, Emily, and I remain great friends and are godparents to each other’s children. At home, photos of those heady days remain framed as firm reminders. When my children start asking to go to Disneyland, I’m going to tell them I have something far better planned for them.
And so, while I understand that life changes and well-established institutions have to adapt to the age, I hope, for the sake of generations to come, that the essence of The Pony Club – the freedom, the values and the environment where the boundless love a child has for their pony is celebrated rather than ridiculed – is not lost.
‘It was classless. The more threadbare your jacket, the better you were respected’