About a year ago, I was feeling stressed and frazzled, like so many of us, overwhelmed by my “to-do” list and wondering how I was ever going to get it all moved into the “to-done” pile. Yet amid all this busy-ness, I left my farm, my agenda, and all of the millions of pressing “must do’s”, to go spend several days as a National Examiner at a United States Pony Club certification testing. These days, a certification is always a multi-level affair and requires considerable advance coordination of candidates, fellow examiners, parents and of course, the organizer. Oh—also, the facility and flight schedules and did I mention it all is supposed to be completed on a tight budget….?

A good friend looked at me as I was juggling these variables into a cohesive package and said–“Why do you still do this? Why do you still bother with Pony Club?”

I looked at her and blinked. I guess I had never really bothered to try to put it into words. So this—nearly a year later, as I am sitting in the Milwaukee airport waiting for pick up to participate in this year’s upper level certification—is my attempt to do just that.

By now, I have been a volunteer/clinician/National Examiner for USPC for nearly four times as long as I was ever a member. I belonged to the Old North Bridge Pony Club in Massachusetts from about 1992-1994, and then Squamscott Pony Club in New Hampshire from 1995 through 1997, when I aged out at 21. I started out as a 15 year old D3 who kept her semi-feral Thoroughbred mare in her English teacher’s backyard and finished as a 21 year old H-A who definitely thought she knew everything there was to know about horses (let’s admit it—what 21 year old isn’t that cocky?). I had participated in two National Championships and travelled to Delaware, California, Oklahoma, Kansas and Hawaii as a Visiting Instructor.

It was an action packed few years, to say the least.

This was all back in the “old days”, when you had to pass a National Testing all on one go, when the only option was to test in all four phases (flat, arena jumping, cross country jumping and horsemanship), when you aged out at 21 and had to try to somehow reach your goals before you ran out of time.

I have been a district commissioner and a regional instruction coordinator. I have organized, managed and taught at countless Pony Club camps. I have organized, judged and been the technical delegate at rallies. I have taught local mounted and unmounted meetings and run local club certifications. I have served on national committees.

I can’t even possibly guess the total number of hours I have spent involved with Pony Club. And I know that at its core, Pony Club is full of passionate horsemen who deeply want to see the organization and its members succeed.

As a National Examiner, I have been yelled at, threatened, physically intimidated and belittled by angry parents (never candidates). But I have also seen some of the very best—candidates who come forward and say that, even if unsuccessful, a testing was one of the most positive experiences that had had in Pony Club. One mother even brought a pie after we had told her son that he had not met standard, with a note thanking us for our compassion and saying, “It is always hard to so no to children and pie.”

But why? Why, out of all the countless equestrian organizations, have I chosen this one, specifically, to spend most of my extremely limited (read: non-existent) free time with?

I guess to understand that, you will have to know a little bit more about me.

When my family moved to Massachusetts in 1990, I was a pretty die-hard hunt seat equitation rider. I had had the opportunity to compete a fair amount for a kid who had never even leased a horse, because our facility hosted several “C” rated AHSA horse shows and held a series of in house schooling shows for all of their clients. There was also a local hunter/jumper association in our area which coordinated a school horse show series for the major lesson factory programs, so I had even competed some at other farms.

I knew nothing about dressage other than bending.

I thought cross country was terrifying.

I had no intention, ever, of competing in a horse trials or event.

I only knew what Pony Club was because of the Saddle Club books.

But when we left New York, I lost my barn family. There, I had been a certified “barn rat”, frequently hanging out after school and helping out around the barn, even though I only had my lesson once a week. I desperately wanted to find that family again in Massachusetts, but from the beginning it was a struggle. Though I found a great hunter/jumper lesson program, it quickly became apparent to both me and my instructor that my goals outstripped any of what her wonderful lesson horses could offer. She told me she was happy to keep teaching me, but unless something changed, horse wise, she wasn’t sure how much further I could go.

I was stuck.

And then something kind of amazing happened. A wonderful woman, Ann Sorvari, who was an English teacher at my high school and my neighbor, let me start riding her Thoroughbred mare Dilly. Dilly had stood around for several years. There was only a twenty meter grass circle to ride on. Dilly really preferred to stand around and look pretty over doing actual work. But I rode her all over the subdivision we lived in, up and down Olde Harvard Road, and once a week, all the way down Burroughs Road, across Route 111, to Wetherbee Stables for a riding lesson.

Dilly was difficult to ride, and I lacked the skills at the time to help her to be better than who she was. She spooked a lot, tried to go around jumps rather than over them, and could have full on Thoroughbred melt downs over really irrelevant stuff.

Kathy, my hunt seat coach, came out to see her one day. She chose her words carefully.

“Well, she is never going to be suitable for what we do,” Kathy said. “If you take her on, you will have to set different goals.”

But like any horse crazy kid, what I wanted more than anything was a horse of my own. So when Mrs. Sorvari offered to transfer ownership of the mare to me, I had already made a shift in my mind.  Despite Dilly being rather ill suited for most riding goals, she met the one criterion that was most important—membership in the species Equus caballus.

And THAT was when I joined Pony Club. A few girls in my high school were members and they gave me their District Commissioner’s info. I knew Dilly would never make it as a hunter or an eq horse, but I figured that in eventing, it didn’t matter what you looked like so long as you made it to the other side of the jump.

Clearly, I had much to learn.

At this time in my life, there was one more major variable in the mix. Just before I started high school, my mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The disease launched a full scale attack on her well-being, with an increase in symptoms that was almost quantifiable from month to month. When you are a teen with no control over something so terrifying, having a safe place to escape to is everything. The more intense her symptoms, the more I focused on studying horsemanship.

Pony Club is a volunteer organization, and parental involvement is key. But my mother was too ill to help, and my father too busy trying to take care of her and go to work and run to the grocery store. Though I didn’t know it then, perhaps the first lesson that Pony Club taught me was generosity—the many parents who picked my horse up to go to meetings or rally though it was out of their way, who spoke up for me at parent’s meetings when I didn’t have a voice, who loaned or gave me tack, equipment and other items which I couldn’t afford on my own. As an emotionally hurting teen, I was not always gracious enough in my acceptance of their support. I can only hope that they all know in their hearts what they did for me, and today I try to emulate their generosity and compassion in my interactions with others.

Here are some of the other lessons I took away from my five short years as a Pony Clubber:

The C1 examiner who complimented me on my ability to handle refusals during my show jumping course, saying, “I have met B’s who don’t know how to ride a stop like that.” This, after being told by so many that my horse (Dilly) was useless and wouldn’t teach me anything. Instead, I learned patience and tact, and developed a tool box of techniques to make things better.

The clinician who helped pull me up out of the water jump at my B prep clinic. After remounting in soggy britches and rejumping the fence, I tearfully asked if there was any point of continuing to plan on taking the test. “I absolutely think you should take the test,” she said. I learned that sometimes you have to land in the swamp and figure out how to pull yourself back up before you will get to where you want to be.

Laughing and chatting and eating Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream at 2 AM with my friend Becky while driving home from Nationals, only to realize that we had been following the wrong car and we had no idea where we were or where to go. We had to stop and wake up her mother in the back seat and admit that we hadn’t been paying enough attention. I learned that sometimes, you have to ask for help, even if it is your own fault you need help in the first place.

Trying Tetrathlon, a four-sport contest in which you run, swim, ride and shoot (add fencing and you have modern pentalthlon). I learned that I could make myself get up and run every day, and do a flip turn in the pool, and shoot a gun, and for the first time in my entire life, feel like a real athlete. I learned that though I was never going to be the fastest or the strongest, I was still capable and that being the best athlete I could be was its own victory.

The moment at my B testing when I burst into tears when I saw the “meets standard” box checked. I couldn’t quite believe it was real—I had found and paid for the lease on my testing horse, arranged for my trailer rides to the clinics and the test and arranged for the hotel all on my own. And though there were several generous, wonderful adults who helped me along the way (including the test organizer who loaned me a car to get to and from the B&B I was staying at when my ride ditched me), it was the single biggest thing I had ever accomplished mostly on my own at that point in my life.  I couldn’t quite believe it was real. It was farther than I had ever dreamed I would go in Pony Club. I learned that I am possible.

And when the examiners handed me back my H-A test sheet, one asked, “when will you take your A?” –and I told her I knew that it was too much, that I didn’t have a horse and wasn’t ready. She replied, “that is another lesson from Pony Club—it teaches us to know our limits.”

Perhaps. But personally, I think the opposite is true. Pony Club challenged me to stretch my limits, to grow and try to do things I had never envisioned were possible for me as an equestrian and young adult.

And Pony Club gave me a community of support and love during a time in my life when I most needed one.

So I will remain #PonyClubProud, because I know that there are children and teens now who were like me then—the ones who just so badly want to show growth and move forward, who are learning to set goals and reach for them, who may not have the full support of people around them at home. Because if for just one member I can be that voice who says, “You can do it. Never give up, keep moving forward,” that is worth more than all the hours combined.

I owe Pony Club a debt I can never repay.

#PonyClubProud