want ads stories/poems reviews recommendations riding & horse care tips
This page is available to all Pony Club members to post information. As of right now there are no specific guidelines, other than it must be "horse-related".  Perhaps... A review of a favorite horse book, movie or show, Something you'd like to sell or that you'd like to buy, A recommendation for a favorite horse camp, Any other information you'd like to share with fellow Pony Club'ers To submit something for posting to the Pony Club Bulletin Board, just send an email to webmaster@redwoodhillsponyclub.org.

Stories, Recollections & Poems...

- 2006 Quiz Rally - 2005 Quiz Rally - If You've Ever (poem) -

2006 Fresno Quiz Rally Diary
By RHPC members Hannah C, Anna G-B, Devyn H, Chenery L, Jessamyn W, and Myranda W
Edited by Chenery

The Ride There
Chenery: Hannah suggested that I write this "documentary" in lip-gloss, but having found a pen, I declined. All six of us (Jr. Ds Devyn,

Myranda, and Anna, and Sr. Ds Hannah, Jessamyn, and me), plus our poor chaperones are crammed into a big red Ford Excursion. There's some studying going on, but most of us are far too distracted by Hannah and Anna shrieking to Green Day to concentrate.
Hannah: Anna and I have finally ceased our horrible singing due to sore vocal cords. We are now all listening to very interesting Western music that Devyn and Myranda are extremely fascinated by. Anna and I are laughing hysterically at this music, and Chenery was trying to study but finally gave up.

Myranda: All I have to say is that Devyn and I were NOT singing to "I'm My Own Grandpa." Okay, maybe a little, just a little. Jeez. Anyway, the chaperones are ignoring us very well. I wish I had their mad skills. Yeah, I'm getting bored. Maybe I should get Anna and Hannah to sing again. It was very entertaining.

Jessamyn: So here we are driving along. Chenery gave me a very hard practice question. Dang! It's nearly 6:00, so it's almost dark. The chaperones have stopped gab, gab, gabbing to listen to us ask each other questions. Yay! We're coming to some civilization!

Devyn: Anna and Hannah are being annoying. Myranda and I were singing to our western CD, but then a chaperone turned it off. So we're sitting doing Quiz practice. There is a lot of traffic in front of us. It'll take forever to get there. Good-bye for now.

Anna: We are all exhausted but running off French Onion flavored Sun Chips. The only sound that I can hear is Jessamyn and Devyn singing along to the Spirit soundtrack We are now 56 miles away from Fresno, and it's practically dark.

Chenery: I can write in relative peace, with the exception of the usual iPod serenades. We are still almost as hyper as we were before. I have given up studying until we get to Fresno. There isn't much else to write.

Myranda: It's 6:52 PM. I wonder when we'll be there Y-A-W-N. I'll sign off for now because there is nothing to write. Only thirty-one miles to Fresno!

Hannah: It is now evening and there is no studying going on. Our chaperones are silent, probably too sick of all the talking to talk themselves. All we can see is pitch black and rain. Devyn and Myranda are singing to Spirit again. I don't think we'll ever have peace.

Jessamyn: I'm listening to music from Rent. Devyn and Myranda are singing loudly and it is really annoying me. We're almost there! Or are we lost? I think we're lost.

Editor's note: We arrived safely at Garden Inn & Suites, without getting lost. After an evening involving jumping on the beds, polishing boots, and watching TV, everyone finally went to sleep. We woke up early and ate a quick breakfast, then scuttled off again in the Big Red to Rio Vista Middle School.

After Quiz
Hannah: Well, we finished Quiz successfully, coming in first in the Classroom session, but not doing as well during Barn. I'm waiting in the cafeteria for the scores to be posted.  We're all exhausted, mentally and physically. I can't wait until our interesting ride home!

Chenery: Our team was absolutely STELLAR in Classroom! Although we didn't do as well in Barn, we definitely learned a lot from our mistakes, and will not be making any of the same ones next time. I am so proud of my team for working so well together in Barn and Stations.

Jessamyn: Devyn, Anna, and Myranda have come back. We are sitting here waiting for the scores. It is rainy and wet. After classroom, Chenery and I were skipping around in the hail because we were hyper.

Myranda: Quiz is finally over! I'm happy, and I'm not. Hannah, Jessamyn, and Anna just came back from playing Red Rover. I quit halfway through because my butt had frostbite. Our scratch member's name is Mady. She is a D-1 and 9 years old. Our team did pretty well in all the phases except for Barn.

Devyn: The scores were just posted! We lost to Moon Valley, but got second place! They beat us in classroom.
Anna: I thought we did fairly well, considering that only one person on the team (Devyn) had gone before. Quiz was way easier than I thought it would be. We're all exhausted and in a hurry for the scores to be posted so we can start on the road back home. Oh! The scores just came! Their team came in second place. Here's Jessamyn.

Jessamyn: I'm sitting here in the cafeteria waiting for our ribbons. Out team has gotten second place. We just finished a painful and muddy, yet fun game of Red Rover. Oh no! The team with only two people got their score raised, so now we are in third place.

The Ride Home
Chenery: After a stressful hour of inquiries, we finally got the unofficial results. The Jr.
D team came in second (I'll let them tell you about it). We came in either second or third. For now, Hannah, Jessamyn, and I are happy with pretty yellow ribbons. Color doesn't matter to us - we know that we are and will always be blue. The main inquiry was that one of the Sr. D teams was a two-person team, technically not allowed. Katrina Dean, the regional supervisor and technical delegate, will soon find out about the rightful ribbons. By next Friday, Hannah and I should find out whether or not we qualified for Championships. I'm fairly sure we did, but we'll find out for sure soon. Now it is 5:47 PM and we're on the way home.

Hannah: We are now having a singing contest, or more like a screaming contest. We had a great time. We played Red Rover with the other teams in the mud. We are now on the way home. It was a long day!

Jessamyn: We've been driving for about half an hour so far. Now it's 6:12 PM and starting to get dark. Quiz was extremely fun! Our teams got second and third place. I'm sure that next year I will go. At the moment we're in the middle of nowhere. Well, here's Devyn now.

Devyn: I'm so bored. Everyone else stopped listening to my music, so I'm just sitting here listening to the same song over and over again. At Quiz they put the scores up half an hour late. The Hannah was put down as a D1 (ten years old) so they had to change their scores, so then we had to wait a "little longer."

Myranda: Hi! Our team got second out of six teams!! I'm so proud!! The Sr. D team did awesome, too, considering their questions were harder. I'm so happy!!!

Jessamyn: It is 6:42 PM. Everyone's listening to their iPods. We're like little technology nut Pony Clubbers. We are little technology nut Pony Clubbers.

Chenery: It's pitch black now (6:53 PM), and exhausted, but still awake, thanks to barbecue-flavored rice cakes. All six of us are so close now. RHPC is a really tight-knit club, and we were all good friends anyway, but now we've seemed to have forged an even stronger friendship. I'll try not to get Ranch Bunny crumbs on the paper.

Myranda: Hellooo! Nothing is actually going on. It's 7:00 PM and all of us are feasting on Fritos, popcorn, and Ranch Bunnies. Hannah says she is partially dying from hunger. I'll say good-bye for now.

Epilogue
The six of us all arrived at Skyline Ranch, exhausted and hungry, but brimming with new horse knowledge. Later, we found out that Hannah and I (Chenery) had qualified for Western States Championships. Our team was moved to second place after consulting the National Office.

Jessamyn, Hannah, and I were all good friends to begin with, but became even closer over this cloudy weekend. Anna and Myranda, who had never been to Quiz before, finished strongly under Devyn's leadership and experience. All of us have plans to come back next year. Whether or not you're an obsessed Pony Club freak like me, Quiz is a great learning experience and lots of fun!

2005 Fresno Quiz Rally Diary
By Chenery

Driving to Fresno
Three hours after we departed from the barn, it was dark, we were tired, and our study materials had been completely exhausted. Jessamyn was pretending to be asleep, Kat was playing blaring music that even we could hear on her Walkman, and Grace and I were content with staring out the window into the darkness. We'd studied hard for the first two hours or so, but after that, I felt like I never wanted to read another passage about equine encephalomyelitis or see another roach-backed, left-behind rider in so-called "excellent position." Thirty-one miles from Fresno, Kat got a call on her cell phone from Kellie, who was already at the hotel. We carried on in the same fashion for another half-hour until we finally pulled up at the Garden Inn and Suites, excited to see the other competitors and thankful to get out of the car.

At the Hotel
Once we finally found our room (a living room, a kitchen, and three bedrooms, each with two queen-sized beds), we were eagerly greeted by Hannah, Devyn, and Kellie. Kat joined Kellie in their room, while Grace, Jessamyn, and I went to another room. We ate M&M's, talked about Quiz, decided how we would do our hair, laughed, and studied very, very hard (of course!). Fifteen minutes before our 10:00 curfew, Jessamyn and I left to get ready for bed.

Morning
After an exhausting night (our a/c didn't work, and the heater kept the room at a steady 85 degrees all night), everyone got up, put their hair up in pigtails with blue and white ribbons, and left for breakfast. No one was particularly hungry, and an entire waffle lay untouched. We returned to our rooms briefly to pack up, and then it was off to Quiz! We pulled into the Rio Vista Middle School parking lot, and saw the little horse used for the Barn segment of Quiz. We found the cafeteria without getting too lost, and went to our tables. We had pictures taken against the Valentine's Day walls, and settled minor confusions about my Intent to Qualify forms and whether Team 9 was in group C or D. Fresno Pony Club DC, the Technical Delegate, and Mary Lou Reese gave us briefings about quiz and clarified any questions we had. Then we went to our first event, classroom.

Phase 1 - Classroom
Classroom took place in - of all places - a classroom! Mary Lou Reese, our wonderful judge, read aloud the rules, how to post an inquiry, and how we were to answer our questions. We were given written tiebreaker questions, and then we started our oral questions. Kat was the first to answer from our team. Next came Hannah, then me. Everyone from our team asked for a 5-point question (rating level), except for Jessamyn, who asked for a 10-pointer (one rating level above), which was probably the strategy we all should have taken. For round 2, everyone took a 10-point question, and we all got full points for that. Round three, everyone boldly asked for 15-point questions.

Phase 2 - Stations
After classroom, we waited for a long time outside of the stations classroom. After finding a whiffle-ball, we organized an impromptu game of kickball against two members of the Pacific Ridge Pony Club. When the room was finally set up, we entered in teams. The tables were fairly easy, covering mostly basic horse knowledge. The topics were things like bits, grooming supplies, pony parts and terms, plants, and simple farrier tools.

Phase 3 - Mega Room
This was the most difficult of the phases! We were asked to identify colors associated with rating levels (who would ever think of studying that?), dressage arena parts, 33 different horse parts, 4 gaits (easiest), and (hardest) parts of the lower leg on a cross-section of a real horse's leg. The other teams did much better on this than our team did, I think because they studied these areas harder, were more familiar with competing in rallies, and maybe used their three minutes more efficiently. I thought that this area would be better as a team phase because we all mostly knew the material for stations, but Mega Room knowledge was very difficult.

Phase 4 - Barn
After Mega Room, we all knew that Barn was our last chance to keep in contention for a win. We planned to ask only for 15-point questions before going in. Then we waited while the other two teams finished up their turns. We waited for at least forty-five minutes and amused ourselves with imaginary jump courses, imitations of Skyline lesson horses, and piggyback rides while the other two teams finished their rounds. When they finally left the area of the "barn" (a trailer with a little pony tied to it), we entered the classroom, also arranged to look like a barn. Our team question was to assemble what we would need to trailer a horse for an overnight rally. We scored most of the points for that part. Then we went to the other section of the "barn." As planned, we all asked for 15-point questions. They were all hands-on questions; some were easier than others, but we did okay on most of them. Barn was the most fun phase of the four; it was a much more relaxed environment, we really got to SHOW our knowledge, and it was the only phase with a real horse that wasn't (1) a skeleton or (2) a leg chopped off, sliced through, and preserved for viewing purposes.

The Results
Once all four of us had completed our questions, we hurried back to the cafeteria to see the Jr. D team's scores and our own, once they were posted. Once the final scores were up, the Jr. D team placed second out of five, and our team with a disappointing third out of three teams. Looking over the other team's scores, I saw that we were less than five points behind the second place team. I also noticed that the place where we had fallen was in the Mega Room. But all in all, despite the final result, our team and club did really, really well, especially since five out of seven were newcomers to Quiz. Everyone had really done her best. And most important of all, everyone had a great time. Although it may seem somewhat sappy, I felt that what we accomplished, last place, first place or otherwise, was a feeling of teamwork, hard studying, and just plain friendship. Although I will always cherish my red and yellow colored ribbon and remember what we did in Fresno, I will cherish the blue and white hair ribbons more. The real prize I gained was the knowledge I got from every question we answered incorrectly and the friendship that will hopefully last longer than any ribbon.

Recommendations

~ Foxfield Riding Camp ~ LongAcres Riding Camp ~

Foxfield Riding Camp

Last summer (08/04) I went to Foxfield Riding Camp down in Southern California, near Westlake Village. I stayed at camp for two weeks and had the time of my life. 

The food was wonderful and the stable was amazing. The girls are sorted into cabins by age group. The cabins are a room with several bunk-beds, dressers and a bathroom with a shower. The camp has a swimming pool with a slide that we got to swim in during free time.  

There's also a cafeteria were you get your meals. They have vegetarian options for all meat meals. The breakfasts were great and there's usually a wide range of options to choose from. The lunches were good (personally not as good as breakfast or dinner) but good enough; they got the job done.  Dinners were the best!  They were very good, very filling and of course there's dessert every night and sometimes even dessert with lunch. 

The stable was truly amazing. They have two full-sized cross-country courses and about five arenas. When you arrive, you get evaluated and put into a group based on your ability. The horses you ride also are selected based on your ability. The stable has five pastures with about fifteen horses in each and they are all great fun. You get to ride twice a day but they're not all lessons. We had lessons a lot, but we also did vaulting on some days and long work on others. We also played mounted games and even did a few trail rides. At the end of the camp we finished with a three day eventing show. The lessons were about 1 to 2 hours long with lots of flatwork and jumping towards the end. We also had meetings where we learned about various equestrian topics. 

The camp was really fun.  The other girls were all very nice, the counselors were GREAT and we had lots of fun with treasure hunts, beach trips, riding and shows.  I would suggest Foxfield to anyone, but it did have one downside. The jumping proved to be disappointing.  At Skyline I was jumping 3.3 feet but at camp we could only jump 2.3- 2.6 at the highest. I learned a lot on flat, but the jumping was definitely too low and not challenging for me. 

So if you're a Pony Clubber jumping about 2.9 or lower and have extremely solid flat work then this camp's for you.  Also, if you jump about 2.6 and lower and need a little help on flat, you'd really love this camp.

If you want to check them out, their web site is www.foxfield.com.

Kellie G.

LongAcres Riding Camp

This is the best camp I've ever been to! In the morning, you get up at 6:30 to go to the barn and clean out stalls and do b-a-r-n  c-h-o-r-e-s. Then after you eat breakfast, you ride, and ride, and ride pretty much! You ride 5 hours a day, unless you chose not to. It's a show barn and they go to shows about once a week, mostly schooling shows but they took us to one A-rated show. The shows are REALLY fun, but they're optional because they cost extra. They have a really nice arena for lessons/jumping, a dressage ring, really nice trails, and a HUGE cross country coarse. They also usually do a hunter pace while you're there. It's so much fun! They also have really nice horses there.

The web site is www.longacres.com. You should take a look, it's a really great camp!

Elissa B.

Riding & Horse Care Tips

~ Evaluate Your Own Riding Position ~ Making Your Own Standing Wraps ~

Evaluate Your Own Jumping Position
By Stormy May

Here is a very easy way to evaluate the most crucial element of your own jumping position from photographs or video. For this project, you can use still photographs from various stages of the jump (take-off, in flight, landing) or a video that you can pause or play in slow motion. Photographs and video should be taken from the side so there is a clear view of your entire body. If you don't have any photographs or video of yourself readily available, you can practice on photos from magazines.

The first step is to find the stirrup in the picture (or where the stirrup would be if you are riding without stirrups). From this point, draw a line straight up, perpendicular to the ground. You can draw the line on tracing paper or just in your mind if you don't want to ruin the photo. There should be approximately equal amounts of your body on each side of this line. That's it!

It's amazing how just this one little trick will often reveal the main instability in most riders' jumping positions. If there is more of your body in front of this line, you are doing what's called "jumping ahead". If more of your body is behind this line, you are "getting left behind".

If you can get someone to photograph or video you from the back while jumping a jump on a straight line, you can also draw a line up the middle of the horse to check your straightness to the left and right. Be sure to pay special attention to your shoulder and hip alignment.

For some good visuals to go along with this article and ideas to correct these habits, refer to the USPC "C" manual pages 126-128.

Making Your Own Standing Wraps
By Stormy May

Has anybody ever wished they could have teddy bear shipping wraps? How about day-glo orange standing wraps? Imagine just having shipping wraps that are actually long enough. You can almost break free of tack stores and catalogs, just try the fabric store! I recently went to Jo-Ann's fabrics located in the Nut Tree factory stores complex and priced materials for wraps. Here's the scoop:

For SHIPPING WRAPS you will need:

WRAPS - Here's where the fabric store comes in. The sturdiest material for shipping wraps is cotton flannel. The traditional color is a natural off-white, but you will see that there are many modern alternatives. Get whatever makes you happy and coordinates with your blanket, halter, and leadrope.

To determine the length you need if you already know how to do a shipping wrap, pin two of your current shorter wraps together, then apply a shipping wrap. Make a note of how much wrap you use, then buy that amount. I made my own 19 feet long and I never come up short. The PC manual recommends 15-16 feet. If you've never put a shipping wrap on, just get somewhere between 15 and 19 feet, which translates to 5-7 yards in fabric-speak.

If you get the thickest flannel you can find, your wraps will probably outlast your Pony Club career and might even become a family heirloom. Ideally you want flannel that has one fuzzy side and one smooth side. You want to wrap with the smooth side out so it doesn't pick up every bit of dirt, hair, and shavings. Unfortunately, the teddy bear pattern is usually on the fuzzy side, so you may
have to make some big sacrifices.

Flannel typically comes in 45 inch widths. Each wrap should be 6 inches wide, so one length of flannel will give you just over 7 wraps. If you have a short pony, you may want 4 or 5 inch wraps instead. To make the flannel into individual wraps, measure 6 inches, make a little cut with scissors, and then R-i-i-i-i-i-p it down the whole 5-7 yards. It will rip much straighter than you could cut it. Don't worry about sewing the edges, just pop the flannels into the washing machine and then wash and dry them a few times. They will look hopelessly tangled and there will be streamers of cotton coming off for the first few washes but just keep breaking off the scraps and eventually your wraps will have nice soft fringed edges that shouldn't come apart anymore.

Cost: $3.99 - $9.99 per yard = $19.95 - $69.93 + tax for 7 wraps depending on how generous you're feeling.

An alternative to cotton flannel is to use ponte polyester. I didn't think this was sturdy enough to use for shipping wraps, but bandage queen Betsey Reeves has given it the thumbs up, so you CAN use it for shipping provided it is long enough. Read more about ponte polyester in the standing wrap section.

PADDING - If you are handy with a sewing machine, you can make your own custom-fit leg pads with cotton or polyester quilt batting and a cotton cover. I don't suggest to make your own though unless you use a commercial "pillow wrap" as a guide and then make it much taller so it covers the essential areas. The easier alternative is to use sheet cottons (available in the tack store or
catalog) and cheesecloth (a loose gauze available at many grocery and hardware stores, just ask for it.)

For a shipping wrap you will need approximately 10 sheets of cotton, folded to make them the right size for the horse's leg. A shipping wrap pad will need to extend from the ground to an inch above the bottom of the hock or knee so measure your individual horse before you start. It's tricky to describe how to properly fold the sheet cottons, but the gist of it is to collate them together
so you end up with one large enough pad that you then cover with cheesecloth and hand sew loosely to keep the sheets and cheesecloth together. I've also heard of using spray adhesive to stick the cheesecloth on, but I would imagine some
horses might have an allergic reaction to it. If you catch me at a rally, hand me some sheet cottons and I'll show you how to fold them together. One of these days I'll make a diagram of it.

Once you have this wrap together, label it front or hind, and always put it on the horse the same way so that it conforms to the horse better each time. Leave the padding rolled up the way it would be on the horse when not in use. Sheet cottons with cheesecloth should not be washed although they can be gently hosed off and air dried if needed.

For STANDING WRAPS you will need:

WRAPS - Ponte polyester is the name of the game here. Yes, if you want to fight with your material feel free to use cotton flannel for these, but I'm a polyester girl. Ask for ponte (pronounced pon-tee) polyester at the fabric store and you will be guided in the right direction. Ponte polyester has just the right amount of stretch to get that beautiful cup under the fetlock without any gaps, and it's the exact same stuff that the commercial standing wraps are made of.

12 feet (4 yards) is about the right length for most horses. The fabric typically comes in 58 inch widths, which you will cut down to 6 inch wraps, same as the shipping wraps. Don't try to rip this stuff though, just mark it with a yardstick and a felt marker, then cut with scissors. Again, if you have a small pony you may have better luck with 4-5 inch wraps. You will get a whopping 9 wraps out of 4 yards of fabric so go in on it with a friend, or give your favorite trainer a useful present.

If you're that handy seamstress, sew some color coordinated, or contrasting velcro onto the ends (using a commercial wrap as a guide), or you can just fasten it with diaper pins, bandage pins, and/or tape.

Cost: $5.99 per yard = $23.96 + tax for 9 wraps ($2.66 ea). Right now at Jo-Ann's, ponte polyester is on sale at 50% off through May 10th so you could get 9 wraps for $11.98. Their selection was rather limited, so get there first!

PADDING - Same comments as for the shipping wraps although you will need a few less sheet cottons per pad. Usually 7-8 do the trick. To determine the height, measure from an inch above the bottom of the knee or hock, to just below the fetlock joint if you plan on cupping your wraps. If you don't want to cup, measure down to the fetlock, but not below. Typical lengths are 14-16 inches.

Commercial padding is generally fine for standing wraps. These include: pillow wraps, and no-bow padding, although some no-bow padding is too thin depending on the age and brand. Stay away from what is called "quilted leg wraps" as these are too thin and suitable only for specialty wraps like ice and cold-water wraps. You shouldn't be able to feel any tendons or indentions in the completed wrap if the padding is thick enough. Looking at the State Line Tack catalog, the acceptable commercial paddings are: Vac's Cadillac Wraps, Equipro Leg Wraps, BB Satin Puffy Leg Wraps, and No-Bow Bandages. The acceptable ones in Dover's catalog are: Leg Liners, Dover's Wraps, Pro Leg Wraps, and The "Natural" Leg Wraps.

So, now that you've gone through all the trouble to make your wraps and you've practiced putting them on, are you ever going to use them for anything besides a rating? Well, if you knew you were going to have a trailer accident, would you want nice, thick, sturdy shipping wraps on your horse? Or would you rather have shipping boots that offer no support and that can rip off if stepped on and trip the horse? Maybe you've chosen to have nothing on your horse's legs. It's your choice.

From experience, I know that it is very helpful to be able to apply both  shipping and standing wraps, as well as many other types of wraps when horses have injuries. Out in the horse world it's hard to find even a vet that wraps horses as well as an upper level pony clubber.