All Roads Lead to Kentucky for United States Pony Club Members
RELEASE: June 21, 2007
AUTHOR/ADMINISTRATOR: By Mary Robertson Pierson
The United States Pony Clubs (USPC), Inc., will continue with its half-a-century tradition of educating young people in horsemanship at the Ninth Triennial Festival to take place July 24-31, 2007, in Lexington, KY. Held at the Kentucky Horse Park, the USPC Festival is the culmination of years of training and qualifying competitions for about 4,000 lucky members, and is the most popular and best-attended Pony Club activity.
As well as national championships in eventing, dressage, show jumping, mounted games, tetrathlon, polocrosse, and quiz, there will be educational seminars and clinics for members, parents and volunteers.
In 43 regions around the country (including Hawaii and Alaska), youth members have been training hard to qualify for the national championships. Many members dream of emulating past Pony Club members, such as Olympians Karen and David O'Connor, Bruce Davidson, Robert Dover and Michael Matz. This is an early opportunity to test themselves and their mounts against the best of their peers.
In the educational phase of the Festival, mounted and unmounted clinics will be conducted by experts in the various disciplines. An abbreviated list of clinicians includes Gina Miles, FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) Silver medalist, eventing; Gegi Winslett, USEF registered “R” judge, show jumping; and grand prix rider Ann Guptil, dressage. Visit the USPC Website to see a complete list of these talented individuals.
The learning doesn’t stop with the mounted clinics. A popular non-riding activity, “Barn Fair” is a hands on multi-station seminar teaching all things equine. Instructors are experienced Pony Club youth members who have achieved upper-level ratings in the Pony Club system. Younger members in particular are fascinated by the Barn Fair, as are the adults participating in the Parents, Leaders and Friends program.
In addition to our corporate sponsors, Festival 2007 is sponsored in part by Wild Horsefeathers.
Pony Club is a misnomer; it is not a club for ponies. It is a non-profit organization that teaches horsemanship and the care of the horse to young people through the age of 21. Pony Club is a worldwide educational organization that originated in Great Britain in 1928. The United States Pony Clubs (referred to as Pony Club or USPC) was founded as a non-profit national youth horsemanship organization in February 1954. Today, there are over 640 Pony Clubs nationwide with over 12,000 members.