30/ JUNE 2017 THE RIDER Why this Mom loves Pony Club


By Danielle Valiquette My daughter, Ella, was


seven when I broke down and bought her a pony. I knew very little about horses, but I managed to beg a good friend into letting me keep him at her nearby farm. And, though, she was thrilled with me buying a horse so that I could share that part of her life with her and her children, she wasn’t exactly on board with my equine choice. The 12.1 gelding barely passed the vet check; he showed evidence of some serious cribbing and he was at least a decade and a half older than the Kijiji advert stated. But for some reason, I resisted everyone’s gen-


tle but vocal concerns and had the pony delivered to the farm. Ella was under the impres-


sion that the farm owners’ daugh- ter was having a new pony delivered and we were just tag- ging along. She pouted, hung her head low, and kicked at the gravel on the lane. When prompted why she was so glum, she mumbled something about how unfair it was that her friend was getting yet another pony. In a moment of weakness, I prom- ised her that if a white pony—we were so uneducated we didn’t even know he was a gray—came off the trailer, she could keep this pony for her own. “Yeah, right Mom”, she said with a rain cloud of gloom over her head. When a “white” pony


did in fact walk off the trailer, it took me ten min- utes to convince her that this skinny, knobby-kneed, flea bitten mongrel was all hers. My wedding day, the birth of my three children, and the day we got our an- cient man, Snow, will go down as the best days of my life. He may be the best $500 I have ever spent. (Tack included, I might add.)


But he wasn’t exactly Danielle Valiquette


stellar from the beginning; he was grossly underweight and had an ulcer in one eye. It turned out he was incred- ibly head-shy and it felt like I was putting my life on the line every time I put the re-


quired ointment in his eye. He needed to be feed four times a day and I traveled back-and-forth from the farm for each meal in- cluding leaving work on my lunch break. I was completely and totally overwhelmed. And, so like many horse


moms—I suppose—Ella started lessons, and we both began to learn the fundamentals of riding. Ella on the back of her cherished Snowy and me from the ring- side. And her coaches were great, but we weren’t learning about horses or horsemanship per se. Snow’s health improved and


he and Ella fell madly in love. She spent hours with him, and they were lead line grand cham- pions at a local schooling show. And then, after about the hun- dredth time my farrier said I should put Ella in Pony Club, I finally listened. Fast forward to today, I have two children in Pony Club and a third who is waiting desperately to be old enough. Ella remains passionate about riding and horsemanship, while my son, Reese, enjoys learning about horses and is gaining much needed confi- dence, but he seems to be moti- vated more by the long-lasting friend- ships he is building. Me? My favourite part


of Pony Club is the young leaders within our club. These older members who are ei- ther still in highschool or slightly older, and have been part of the club for years. They are everything a mother could hope for in role models and mentors for one’s children. In fact, when we first joined the club, I wanted to grab Ella’s face and force her to look at these great examples in front of her and yell, “Do you see these great teens? One day be like them!” But I did resist this urge, silently hop- ing that some of the more mature member’s


Ella did at Snow once she realized he was hers. It seems I don’t need to force my kids to notice exactly how awesome this experi- ence is for them. They seem to be getting that all on their own. Danielle, or


Ella and Snow


leadership skills will passively rub off onto my offspring as they too grow into (hopefully) re- spectful youths. And then last night at our


club’s first mounted meeting of the year, as I organized my daughter’s application for her first level of testing, I heard her squeal in delight, “Emily!”. I turned around to see Ella bound into the open arms of one of our oldest members, “I can’t wait for you to see me ride today!” And there was Ella, gazing up at this fresh-faced youth with complete awe and admiration, much like


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Dani, is on contract as the Director of The Canadian Pony Club. Her daughter Ella (10) and son Reese (12) are members of the Blue Mountain Pony Club, while her daughter Camille (4) is desper- ately waiting for the day she turns six, so that she too can join. Dani is also a member of the Blue Mountain Pony Club Horse Masters division, and hopes to one day do better on a pony club


test than her children. She owns Stone House Stables along with her husband, Yves. They are able to do this thanks to relying heav- ily on advice from their friends at Pony Club and from Google. They blog about their experi- ences running a horse farm at www.stonehousestables.ca. Sadly, Snow is no longer


with the Valiquettes, but he is buried on the farm and is still very much cherished.


Danielle Valiquette


dani@daniellevaliquette.com c 226-668-7374


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