A team of girls from the North Hereford Pony Club have won a place at the Horse Of The Year Show (HOYS) to compete for the Prince Phillip Cup in Mounted Games, to be held on October 4-8th 2017 at the NEC in Birmingham.

The team of six beat off competition from 250 other teams from across the country culminating at the Pony Club Championships at the end of August, where the team won their HOYS place, even with one of their riders injured! Having fought their way to be one of the top 6 teams in the country, this is the first time in the clubs history that they have qualified for HOYS and they now have a gruelling 5 weeks of serious practice, preparation and fundraising in order to compete.

The team, consisting of Lottie Edwards (14), Sophie Beach (13), Charlotte Wilson (14), Georgia Barrett (14), Ottie Thomas (13), and Jennifer Arnold (11) together with backup from Lucy Lightwood (11) and Ruby Scholes (11) are from across Herefordshire and Worcestershire and have been competing together all year across the country at local and national level, and at big events and shows.

The competition involves teams of 5 riders competing in a series of relay-type races, moving equipment such as boxes, balls, flags, coins, grooming kit and socks, all at break-neck speed while bending round poles, cones, tables, over stepping stones and through tyres, while vaulting on and off their ponies.

Team Manager Rachel Barrett said ‘It’s a complete dream come true – we’ve all worked so hard for this and to qualify for HOYS is the ultimate goal. We now have so much to learn about competing at HOYS and have a month to get ourselves TV ready - including some serious fund raising, as we need to pull together around £14k!! Many of the larger pony clubs get their equipment, team clothing, training venues and costs donated, but as a small, not-so-well-off club, we will need to raise this ourselves.’

The girls, their parents and ponies will camp for the week of the competition at the NEC. Their daily training/exercising will start at 4.30am with competitions each day generally around 3pm and 7.30pm with bits of sleep grabbed in between. The club’s District Commissioner Sally Pearson said ‘It will be a fun but gruelling, exhausting and expensive week.

As well as competing twice per day, the girls will need to be smartly dressed at all times in true ponyclub style, they will present the other Pony Clubs with a regional ‘gift’ and will also need to convert a temporary stable into a state of the art tack room – which is then inspected and judged by members of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, among others. The team, their parents and their ponies will camp at the NEC in Birmingham for the entire week of competition.

says Alice, mum to the youngest team member Jennifer, who starts at John Masefield High School in Ledbury next week , ‘Having worked their way up. It it is their last chance to compete as a team as two of our riders will be too old next year. HOYS will be hard work for us parents too - we will have to take a week off work and camp in a car-park, but I’m sure it will be worth it’.

‘We understand that people are asked for money all the time for many worthwhile causes, but without the generosity of sponsors and donations from local companies, we would not be able to make this happen. We are very grateful to anyone who is able to help us – with time, money, equipment or skills!