Hairy Girl Riding Me on Top Wants a Baby

The almost inevitable request for a pony is dreaded past many parents but the process of your child's learning to ride need not be painful. Flora Watkins talks to parents both proficient and novice virtually how to get the best leg-upward.

'Please tin can I accept a pony' is a request that will fill a parent with either huge joy or sheer terror and little else in betwixt. For the mother whose babyhood was one of bending races and apple tree-bobbing, it will reignite a long-dormant devotion to dandy brushes, rolling tail bandages and the aroma of saddle soap. For the uninitiated, that old chestnut about horses beingness 'dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle' will brand them nervous. and where practise you commencement if there isn't an anile ancestral Shetland in the family?

In that location'due south no dubiousness that being born into a horsey family confers a head start. Similar Swiss children who can't retrieve not beingness able to ski, such babies volition have been bundled into a basket saddle as soon as they could sit up and taken to the opening meet on the lead rein.

If yous've decided to accept the plunge and are looking for a pony? Our sis publication has a 'Horses for sale' department (recently relaunched) which includes first ponies for sale and pony lodge ponies for sale .

The all-time way to outset off

Marietta Fox-Pitt sent a young William to his second Pony Club event with a '17.1hh beast' named Fat, which had been effectually Badminton three times with his begetter. In his memoir, What Will Be, Mr Fox-Pitt credits his mother's sensible approach to horseflesh, along with an early on introduction to the hunting field, with transforming him from a 'slightly nervous' child to this country's most successful outcome rider.

Nicola Taylor, a articulation-master of the Bicester with Whaddon Chase and mother of Olympic-listed event rider Izzy Taylor, benefited from a similarly matter-of-fact approach. Her own mother, Jane Drummond-Hay, was second at Badminton in 1951 at what was her first 3-twenty-four hours event. 'Nosotros weren't allowed saddles until we were x,' recalls Mrs Taylor. 'It was my female parent'southward big affair and it did give u.s.a. terrific seats. We never had lessons and we hunted a lot.'

Mrs Taylor at present nannies Izzy'due south children, Lily, seven, and Freddie, 6, out hunting while their mother leads the field. 'It'southward given them more than confidence and taught them more about riding than anything I could take washed,' Izzy explains. They are, she adds, allowed saddles.

From cowgirl to the Olympics: Jennie Loriston-Clarke (née Bullen) went on to win U.k.'due south first dressage medal.

Jennie Loriston-Clarke, the dressage rider, trainer and breeder, agrees that hunting and cross-country riding are the best and virtually natural training for children. she was started early by her artist female parent, Anne Bullen, who founded Catherston Stud and illustrated children's books and who died, tragically young, before she could run into three out of her 6 children compete at the Olympics.

'Everything was made fun,' recounts Mrs Loriston-Clarke. 'We would plow the ponies circular angle poles, becoming active. Nosotros rode a lot without saddles and sometimes without a bridle, merely with a cervix strap, galloping about like cowboys and Indians.'

She also remembers having ponies that were and then well trained to the voice by her mother that they'd respond to 'Whoa'. 'There'southward null more frightening for a kid than being out of control; once they have a fright, they start to clutch [at the reins] and go nervous.'

Not only did her own daughters want to ride—Anne Dicker now manages the stud and Lizzie Murray is an international dressage rider—but her teenage grandchildren also dear it. Charlotte Dicker was on the junior British dressage team terminal twelvemonth and Matilda Murray is mad dandy on tetrathlon.

'Information technology'due south all about having fun'

At Jinks Bryer'due south Sunday forenoon lessons at Princes Place, near Yeovil, Somerset, very young children are encouraged to leap into the saddle and roar like a dinosaur or whirl their hands round their heads to see who can be the best helicopter.

'"Hands and heels down" is the concluding matter you introduce at that age,' cautions Mrs Bryer. 'It's all near having fun and learning coordination,' she says, adding that, when children are a footling bit older, 'Granny Jinks bribes them—if they autumn off, they get £one if they don't weep.' She teaches parents to have quick reactions, so they tin can grab a child if they're going 'out the side door'. That'southward far amend, she reckons, than bundling children upwards in bulky body protectors.

Boys can go away with it: Volition Bryer still can't plait a mane, but he's now hunting the Cattistock hounds

Showtime boys later than girls – and don't get the mother to teach them to ride

Mrs Bryer too thinks that, although girls tin can be taught from as young equally three, boys should exist 'plonked on a pony to get a bit of balance, only don't want educational activity at whatever price' until they're much older. And no child, she believes, should be taught past its mother.

Her daughters, Lucinda Sims and Philippa Stacey, were largely taught by their grandmother, the redoubtable Betty Skelton, who founded the Side Saddle Clan, and her youngest son, Volition, was shipped out to a neighbour, the showjumper Jabeena Maslim.

This approach paid off. Lucinda has ridden at Badminton and continues her grandmother's legacy, pedagogy side-saddle at Harroway Stud in Hampshire; Philippa won her commencement showing class at the age of three; Will hunts the Cattistock hounds and their brother, Julian, played polo for the army.

Will was delighted that his female parent subscribed to the view that one keeps boys keen by letting them off the 'manicuring and manure', although it backfired when he took his Pony Club B Test. When the examiner asked 'What would you lot do with your pony later hunting?', he replied: 'Paw it to Mummy.' He was passed, to spare his mother's blushes—and on status that he never took some other test. He admits that he even so can't plait a mane.

Polly Eddis, whose daughters, Lucy and Susie, have won as well many working hunter-pony championships to list, can just entice her 10-year-sometime son, Algy, onto a pony if he'south immune to wear his Chelsea football strip. 'At that place's no point in pushing children; it volition merely backlash. They will allow you know when they desire to go faster or spring a bigger argue.A few times, we've walked the [jumping] course and I've said "We're going to leave that today". I want my girls to be in their comfort zone in the ring.'

All children demand a kind, repose pony for those crucial early days. Lizzie Briant, who shows The Queen's native ponies, put her proper noun downwardly for a well-known schoolmaster pony before long after her son was born. At present ii, Freddie enjoys riding Mr Socks, a 19-year-erstwhile Shetland, in and out from the field and was dressed up as a pumpkin to sit on him last Halloween.

No pony? No problem

The lack of a pony at habitation doesn't accept to be a bar. It certainly didn't hold back v-fourth dimension Olympian Mary King, who famously taught herself to ride on the vicar's hairy pony in Salcombe Regis, Devon, where her begetter was the verger. 'If I hadn't had Mary at domicile in bed, I'd take thought they'd given me the incorrect babe,' jokes her female parent, Jill Thomson, as there is no horsey lineage in their family unit.

Mrs Thomson, now in her seventies, confesses to still being a little frightened by horses, merely she passed her HGV test at the age of l, then she could drive the lorry, and mucks in with 'granny jobs'—Mary's daughter, Emily, 20, is at present eventing at the top level—'doing haynets and water buckets and filling the cake tins for owners'.

Get the children started young

Investment banker Alex Carter had intended to stay well away from horses when he married Jules, who co-owns the 2014 Badminton-winning mare Paulank Brockagh, but, when ponies arrived for their four children, he thought he'd better find out what all the fuss was nearly and 'sneaked off' to Tidworth riding school. He's at present cantering happily and popping over small fences and hopes to become hunting with his children adjacent season. 'Now, I turn up at shows and, instead of being a bit of a spare function, I can assistance tack up,' he says proudly. 'Riding has given me a new lease of life.'

Riding instills confidence, kindness and self-subject field in children. Ponies have them outdoors and keep them active—y'all'll never need to lure a child who rides abroad from a computer game—and have enough character to ensure that no i becomes as well superior. At that place is, however, a flip side. Sooner or afterward, your child will try to pinch your horse.

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The Commencement Pony

Jinks Bryer's tips:

• Information technology doesn't matter how old it is or what it looks like, as long every bit information technology's a complete Christian
• It needs to be childproof in every manner, and then the kid tin brush it, lead it about and crawl between its front legs
• I prefer Dartmoors to other native breeds for leading-rein ponies; their temperaments are slightly less sharp than Welsh or Shetland ponies
• At first, Shetlands are kind (to children, anyway) and, being smaller, the kid is less frightened by their height, just they have such a short footstep that it'due south well-nigh impossible to teach a child rise trot

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Useful kit

• The only essential, and expensive, item, once a kid is out of a handbasket saddle, is a hard hat that conforms to the British safety standard PAS015
• Don't buy a hat online—it needs to be fitted correctly in the shop. Calcutt & Sons in Sutton Scotney, Hampshire, has a good selection of used and new children's hats. The Champion Pro-Plus Jockey Helmet is £52.seventy (01962 760210; world wide web.calcuttandsons.co.uk)
• School shoes with a smooth sole and a heel—to prevent the kid's human foot from getting caught in the stirrup—are fine
• The Vintage Tack Room (01403 700953; world wide web.vintagetackroom.com) normally has tiny jackets and jodhpur boots in stock
• Harry Hall's Baby Chester Jodhpurs (£18) are specially designed for the under-threes (www.harryhall.co.uk)
• Back protectors are of import for cantankerous-country, but Jinks Bryer urges parents non to use them for general riding considering they restrict a child's movement
• If there isn't a Victorian handbasket saddle in the family, The Basket Saddle Co tin can make you i for £169.99 (world wide web.basketsaddle.com) or effort a Thorn saddle pad, which is ideal for modest native ponies (and pocket-size people), recommends Lizzie Briant. From £270 (01332 883109; www.thornsaddles-pads.co.uk)

Association of British Riding Schools (01403 790294; www.abrs-info.org)
The Pony Guild (02476 698300; world wide web.pcuk.org)

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Credit: Dreamstime

If your son or daughter is completely pony mad, consider sending them to a school that can nurture their riding

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Source: https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/dogs/childs-first-pony-survival-guide-parents-91115

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