Massey Pony Club

WELFARE WEDNESDAY - “HE’S NAUGHTY”

You ask your horse to move forward, but they plant their feet.

You ask for canter, and they rush, pigroot or pin their ears.

You ask them to stand quietly, but they paw, call out, fidget or pull back.

It can be easy in those moments to say the horse is being naughty, lazy or stubborn. But unwanted behaviour is information. Labelling a horse as naughty, lazy or stubborn can stop us from understanding the cause.

Using terms like naughty, lazy or stubborn to describe unwanted behaviour demonstrates a lack of understanding.

That does not mean people are trying to do the wrong thing. These words are common in horse communities, and many of us have heard them used for years. But they can lead us down the wrong path.

When we call a horse stubborn, we may stop asking whether the horse is confused, worried, uncomfortable, in pain, tired, overwhelmed, or responding to unclear aids.

Horses need clear and consistent aids, and consistent expectations for their behaviour. When aids are unclear, or expectations change from one day to the next, the horse’s world can become confusing and worrying.

Good horsemanship means looking deeper. Before we label the horse, we need to ask:

❓ What is the horse trying to tell us?

❓ What part might our timing, pressure, training, handling or environment be playing?

❓ How can we make the right behaviour easier for the horse to understand?

Understanding the cause helps us support the horse, improve safety, and build better partnerships.

📝 Pony Club Australia

Happy Mother’s Day to all of our incredible Pony Club Mums! ❤️

The ones up before sunrise for early starts, towing floats rain, hail or shine, plaiting ponies in the dark, scrubbing white socks that somehow never stay white, calling tests, finding lost gloves, packing endless snacks and somehow always knowing where everyone’s gear is.

Thank you for being groom, chauffeur, coach, medic, organiser, photographer, snack provider and most importantly the number one cheerleader from the sidelines.

Pony Club simply wouldn’t run without the mums who do it all with muddy boots, full calendars and big hearts. We appreciate every early morning, every long day and every quiet thing you do behind the scenes to make it all possible.

Wishing you all a wonderful Mother’s Day, hopefully with a hot coffee for once! ☕️

GOOOO MASSEY GIRLS 👏🏼❤️

Huge congratulations to the following riders, who, after working incredibly hard over the season, passed their C+ ridden exams today!

Grace O’ Sullivan - Dressage
Emer Gooder - Full ridden
Zoey Wood - Full ridden

Well done girls! An absolute credit to you and our wonderful coaches.

Thank you to our examiners on the day: Celia Pickens and Mary Dawkins and TD: Gail Seeley

✨ WE ARE HIRING! HEAD COACH POSITION AVAILABLE ✨

As we get ready for a new season, Massey Pony Club is looking to appoint a Head Coach to join our club. This is a paid position and a great opportunity to play a key role in supporting our riders and coaching team.

We’re seeking someone who loves working with young riders, has solid coaching experience, and is passionate about good horsemanship and safe riding practices. Our Head Coach plays an important part in coordinating fun, well‑run rallies and helping our riders grow in confidence and skill.

If you are passionate about coaching and would like to be part of a supportive and community‑focused club, we would love to hear from you!

To register your interest or to find out more, please email [email protected]

PONIES, PROGRESS AND PLENTY OF PROUD MOMENTS ⭐️

That’s a wrap on junior rallies! From start to finish, our Tuesdays have been packed with fun, learning, and plenty of pony-powered progress. Riders have tackled everything from dressage and showjumping to gridwork, games, poles, cross country, fitness training, and horse management with additional mindset and goal-setting workshops helping everyone grow both in and out of the saddle.

We’ve crowned our Dressage and Showjumping Trophy Night champions for the season and celebrated in style with a well-earned visit from Mr Whippy 🍦

It’s been fantastic to see our riders out representing WADPC at interclub events, as well as flying the flag for our club individually both at local and national competitions. We couldn’t be prouder of the effort, attitude, and results!

We ran our ever-popular Introduction to Pony Club Programme across two terms, welcoming 16 new riders into the pony club world. It’s always such a pleasure seeing the next generation get started!

We’ve been fuelled by countless incredible dinners from the canteen (huge thanks to Clint — you’ve kept us all going!), and been inspired by the many deserving nominees in our Member of the Month initiative, proudly supported by Ecohorse.

Most importantly, this season has been defined by the beautiful sportsmanship, teamwork, and outstanding horse management shown by our riders week in, week out. That’s what pony club is all about!

We’re already looking forward to doing it all again next season. Keep an eye out for enrolments opening over Winter. New members are always welcome, and we’d love to have you join us! 🐴✨🚩

~ Darryll MacDougall, Head Coach

Huge congratulations to the following riders, who all passed their D+ examinations on Tuesday with flying colours 🌈

- Aria Carppe
- Indy Wood
- Skye Cash
- Kate Morgan
- Jiya Vallabh
- Clarisse Purdon

Well done girls! 👏🏼 ⭐️

And special thank you to examiner Rebecca Paterson for taking the time to assess them

ECOHORSE MEMBER OF THE MONTH ✨

We had some wonderful nominations for our February Ecohorse Member of the Month.

Our well deserved winning nominee was Grace O’ Sullivan! 👏🏼

Grace is a long-time member, our beloved rider representative and more recently has taken on more responsibility in the running of our events. She put in a superhuman effort to get our recent Ribbon Day off the ground and we were so impressed! Thank you and congratulations Grace! We’re very proud of you ❤️

Grace’s favourite Ecohorse product is the Lavender Leave-In Conditioner - Great for calming those nerves out at a show!

Special mention also owing to our other nominees:

⭐️ Indy Ferrington (a pony!), for so patiently participating in our Intro to PC Programme each week and the Ferrington family for letting us borrow him.

⭐️ Sarah Hayes, for her admirable patience and wonderful instruction with our littlest members at rallies.

⭐️ Mike Robertson, he’s out there pinning XC fences, moving fallen trees, he’s mowing.. Amongst many other things he’s doing for the club. We’re very lucky to have you!

A huge thanks to all of those that came along to our SJ day yesterday! We hope you all had a wonderful time.

Here is the link to some gorgeous shots taken by BWP Photography 📸

Special thanks also owing to our wonderful team of organisers, set up and pack down crew - Team work makes the dream work! ❤️ 👏🏼

CHEERS TO ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL SEASON WITH OUR ADULT RIDE 🥂

What a season it’s been! We’ve had a cracking turnout, with three groups running each week and a fantastic crew of riders turning up to give it a go (and occasionally pretend we know what we’re doing).

A few early rallies were rudely cancelled by the classic Wednesday curse (seriously, does it only rain on Wednesdays?!) But we bounced back in style with weekend catch-up clinics.

The vibe? Absolutely top-notch. A genuinely supportive bunch, plenty of laughs, and just the right level of not taking ourselves too seriously - arguably the secret ingredient to progress.

We’ve been spoiled with the insight of 11 different coaches this season, each bringing their own flair and focus. Feedback has been flowing, and Brianna Johnson definitely earned fan-favourite status. And of course, a special shoutout to Ian, who showed up week after week, rain or shine.

All in all, it’s been a brilliant season in the saddle. We’re already looking forward to doing it all again next season - hopefully with fewer rainy Wednesdays, just as many laughs, and even more riders joining in the fun.

~ Delia Cato, AR Coordinator

LAST CALL - SJ DAY ENTRIES ⏰

Entries for our SJ Day are still open with no late fees until the end of TODAY!

We have our brand new set of Jump4Joy SJ’s ready to go and we are very excited to have BWP Photography as our official event photographer!

All entries to go via www.evoevents.co.nz

Any enquiries please email [email protected]