Welcome to our Pony Club Riders

Welcome to our Pony Riders' Page

Recently Kate McDermott inaugurated a Pony Riders group and it is fast becoming a great success. Designed to be both fun as well as educational for younger riders, it is aimed at and restricted to, those children who are regular riders at Rose Cottage Riding School. The Pony Riders Group holds stable management evenings during school terms, ridden rallies in the holidays and other special events. These might include dressage, beach rides, jumping, treasure hunts, picnic rides and visits. We have set up this special web page to let you know about it, what we do and how our younger riders enjoy it. So, please watch this space...

Become a regular rider now if you'd like to be a member of the Rose Cottage Pony Riders' Group.

Below are just some of the events we have had so far...

[If you have any photographs from Pony Riders' events which would be suitable for this page, do please pass them to Kate. We shall be happy to upload them here].

On Friday the 8th August, 2008 we held the third of our Pony Group Dressage tests. Here are some of the shots taken then, both of the competitors and one even of the judges - just to show how like the real thing we are!. We think you'll agree that our Riders Group are coming along well!

Recently our Pony Riders Group started learning some dressage. So much so that they have even been taking some individual tests! Early days yet of course and there is another dressage day coming up soon when we might have more, but these shots show the riders on the their tests already putting their knowledge to good use.

On Monday 23rd June, Rose Cottage Riding School's Pony Riders group took part in another field trip. This time our vet Anne Scott invited them to her practice in Carndonagh.
At first she scanned a mare to see if it was pregnant - sadly it was not - and explained what was on the screen to everyone. She then gave the children a talk on how to tell a horse's age just by looking at its teeth, she then asked the children to tell her the age of the horse......and most of them got it right too. To finish off Anne let the children have a go at 'marking' Zuko, this is the process of describing Zuko for his passport where all his distinguishing marks are recorded.
Whilst the children were there a sick puppy was brought in and Anne was good enough to let the children watch as she diagnosed and then treated it. Altogether a wonderful and very educational evening. At the end all the children thanked Anne for a lovely time. Here are a few photos taken during the evening:

On Monday 9th June, Rose Cottage Riding School's Pony Riders group went on an evening trip to the 'Ballybrack Shetland Pony Stud' in nearby Greencastle, Co. Donegal, where the owners Thomas Lake and Eddie Kelly took the children on a tour of their facilities. Ballybrack is the home of Ireland's smallest registered pony, he is called Glenkee Pan, a 28" Dun stallion.

First off, Thomas took the children out to the fields to see some of their mares and their new foals, the foals were 6 - 8 weeks old then. Interestingly they have two stallions running in the fields with them. They are Night Like, who is a Chestnut and Zac (no photo of him here unfortunately) who is a Skewbald. The children had a grand time there but as you can imagine with 12 children in their field the mares were very nervous. Nevertheless and as you can see below, Caolan and Charlie did manage to coax some of them over to pet them.

Eddie then took the children up to the stud where he introduced them to Gunner and Tarzan who share a field, Gunner is a 16.1 Clydesdale cross and Tarzan is a 29" Shetland. It's so funny to see them together. He then took them on a tour of the stables where they saw Night Like and some of the other inmates ending here with Tarzan and finally he took them to see one of the carts and the tack they have as some of the Shetlands have been broken for driving. The children all thanked Thomas and Eddie for a very interesting and enjoyable evening out. Here are a few pictures taken on the day.

18/10/2008