Pony Club Australia -Inter Pacific Exchange New Zealand 2011

Australian Team Coaches Report:

The 2011 Pony Club Australia Inter Pacific team met at the Holiday Inn near Melbourne Airport where we stayed the night prior to leaving for New Zealand. It proved easy to bond as a team because everyone had many similar interests. It was also evident that our whole team enjoyed starting their own horses from scratch and also working with young and/or difficult horses. They all had a good foundation for a competition on borrowed horses.

My first opportunity to see the team ride was at our visit to Nga Tawa school. The equestrian students loaned their horses to the international teams(New Zealand did not ride due to lack of available horses). Our team treated the horses with a lot of respect, and werevery grateful to the Nga Tawa students for the opportunity to ride. Our riders had enough self confidence that they did not feel any need to prove themselves in front of their peers. They simply gave the horses a warm up, a trot and canter either direction and then went for a walk around the gallop track. They expressed their concern that the other teams were seemingly trying to out do each other and also swap horses many times. Many of the loaned horses ended up having a very big workout and were sweating quite heavily by the end, with the notable exception of the Australian horses. Our girls all proved to be competent, quiet and thoughtful riders, and had assessed and worked with their borrowed horses very well.

The next opportunity scheduled for riding was theKangaroo Cup. Due to the itinerary change from Christchurch, this was to be competing at a local gymkhana in a few classes including mounted games, handy hunter classes and showjumping. Unfortunately because of the continuing wet weather this event was cancelled. There was no replacement Kangaroo Cup event, but our host club did organise a quiz which ended up as one of the things which counted for the Kangaroo Cup ribbons. It’sreassuring to report that the team of Managers/Coaches got the best score!

The Nations Cup pool horses were drawn on Thursday night and we received our horse information sheets.The information provided by the owners gave us the basics. On paper each nation’s pool seemed evenly matched with a couple that were experienced eventers, a couple that were greenor hadn’t competed at alland a couple somewhere in the middle. They were also a range of heights, and there were very few pure showjumpers.We had 7 pool horses, so there were 2 ‘spare’. Initially we chose not to use those described on paper as a ‘very green 5yo’ and a ‘lazy’ horse owned by a riding school. This soon changed at the tryout, as unfortunately one of our choices was lame and another a little light in the hindquarters (read: pigrooting).

The morning of the nations cup saw many of the horses being ridden in an “owners round”. This was scheduled in order to persuade the lending of horses to the IPE riders. All of our horses except for Hannah’s were ridden in the owners class, and all jumped clear except for Harriet’s.

Team Australia in the Opening Ceremony

Jess, Tammy, Harriet, Hannah, Min, Amanda, Carol

Soon after the opening ceremony, Tammy was our first rider out. Her horse Sneakapeak had talent, but proved quite tricky to ride on course. They worked well together at the horse selection and also in the warmup, but he was quite different once in the ring, getting a little headstrong. In the owner’s round he added strides down all the lines, while his owner kept himrestrained. He jumped clear and placed third, but it didn’t look to be an easytask.Tammy and Sneakapeak had 2 rails in the first round and 1 in the second. It showed the improvement of them as a combination, and had there been a little more opportunity to get his measure, I have no doubt that Tammy would have produced clear rounds.

At home Jessica has a little bucksin called Furball, and in our pool of horses there was a little buckskin of very similar type, so Jess hopped on and tried it out. Unfortunately they didn’t get along as well as hoped, so instead Jessica took the ride on Sir Romwill.Willow was fairly laid back about being ridden by someone different as he belonged to a riding school. They had three rails in the first round, but improved in the second round with two rails.Jess didn’t make any mistakes and had good distances to each fence.It seems as though the other nations had all the luck as they could hit rails without them falling - but our rails were barely touched and fell down!

Harriet had the toughest job with her horse being the greenest of all the donated horses. Tonka was just 5 years old and only broken in 3 months. He was also the smallest horse in the competition. In the owner’s round he was quite spooky and had a very good look at the liverpool, almost depositing his rider in the water when he put the brakes on. Harrietproduced an extremely well ridden clear in the first round, overcoming the sticky moments at the liverpool and planks. Unfortunately, although it was a much smoother second round they had two rails. It was a big new experience for our favourite pony, and he was simply worn out. He was absolutely gorgeous and we all would have liked to bring him home in our suitcase!

Hannah had the ride on quite an experienced showjumpercalled Little Miss Pete. As is common with a lot of good mares, she was quite sensitive, and needed tactful riding. In the canter she had a tendency to disunite but Hannah rode her very well, improving the canter on the flat and they had a clear first round. One rail down in the second round, but again there was no reason for it other than pure bad luck. Hannah rode very well in both rounds and produced a nice jump from the mare. She was up for sale and I think Hannah would have bought her home if only she could have met the asking price.

Amanda was on an experienced event horse called Tidal, who was a well mannered bay gelding. Amanda worked hard to get Tidal to lengthen his frame over the fence because he liked to keep his neck short. He also needed to be kept in a steadily contained canter or there was a tendency to flatten out. Amanda rode very well and they jumped a lovely clear in the first round and had two rails in the second. The owner said this was very typical of the horse – she haddescribed him on the owner’s information sheet as “honest, just not clever”.The two they had down were again barely touched –luck was just not on our side.

After the first round we were in second position on 8 faults behind Canada on 0. New Zealand were in third on 16, USA fourth on 20 and Hong Kong fifth on 32. After the second round we had slipped to equal third, with New Zealand improving on their first round adding only 4 faults.Final scores below.

Team Results (best 4 scores on each round):

1st Canada – Score: 0 –R1 R24th United States – Score: 32 – R1 R2

Rachele Foote 8 0 Kaleigh Quinn 8 4

Mariah Chapman 0 0 Alexa Wolf 8 0

Nayla Charbonneau 0 0 Kelsey Hamilton4 4

Kathryn Lessing 0 0 Susan Thomas 4 8

Kelsey-Anne Campbell 0 0 Kiersti Wylie 4 4

2nd New Zealand – Score: 20 –R1 R25th Hong Kong – Score: 56 – R1 R2

Lauren Cooney 0 0 Naomi Croney E E

Anna Nesbit 8 0 Jemma Rogers 16 12

Marisna Roodt 4 0 India Fleischer-Ballard 8 12

Holly Morrell 16 4 Kimberley Held 8 0

Oliver Steele 4 4 Julia Raber0 0

3rd Australia – Score: 32 –R1 R2 (Australia was awarded 3rd place on a count back on time)

Tamara Bondfield 8 4

Jessica Pyke 12 8

Harriet Gruen 0 8

Hannah Ramage 0 4

Amanda Archer 0 8

Thank you to NZPCA for a professionally run Nation’s Cup dayand congratulations to Canada with their amazingtotal score of 0 faults.I can honestly say that our Australian team showed not onlysuperb horsemanship, but superior technical skill.The scores did not truly reflect the overall picture of the competition, and all of our team rode very nice lines and good distances to fences. We ended on equal faults with USA but placed ahead of them on a count back to time in the second round, so the good lines did contribute to that. All our riders gave their mounts a lovely ride and their owners were happy with the way their horses were ridden.

Although we were unsucessful in defending our last IPE Nations Cup win, we were judged by the organisers as the happiest team (no complaining about the constant changes to the itinerary),the most orginised team (getting on the bus on time with all our gear)and the best dressed team (even if mistaken for scouts, Emirates air hostesses, etc)

A huge thank you to our Australian selectors for the opportunity to coach our Australian IPE team and for chosing such well adjusted, professional, level headed riders to be our Pony Club Australia representatives – you made my job a pleasurable one!

Finally, best of luck to the Canturbury area in their effort to recover from the earthquakes. I know we would have all loved to visit the South Island, and will make plans to return.

Merindah Thomson

Australian Team coach

IPE 2011