It certainly is a golden era for the Greymouth Pony Club. Greymouth Green won the South Island Pony Clubs’ show jumping teams championship at Rangiora: their second win in this very competitive event (the other was in 2015). Greymouth Gold finished ninth, and there was a composite team of Greymouth and Kokatahi Pony Club riders. A total of 28 teams, with six riders each, took part.
Todd Magner, captain of Greymouth Green, said, “We have had good training from Penny Jones. She has been keeping us going for many years.” He confirmed that they are also intending travelling north to the Pony Club Eventing Championships which will be held in Whangarei in May, to defend the title they won last year in Canterbury.
The winning show jumping team members this year were Todd Magner and Kendal Thompson (seniors), Jed Comber and Georgia Gill (intermediate) and Ella Rae-Wood and Kirk Magner (juniors); a few different faces from when they last won.
Ella was the star of the team, winning three of her classes on her lovely pony Tallyho Primrose, and finishing second in the other. That one was taken out by her team mate, Kirk! Ella said that this was her fourth time to these championships.
The Greymouth teams were lucky to just sneak home before the storm really hit, as it eventually closed all the roads back to the Coast.
Kaiapoi Black finished in second place, with Amberley Blue third, Rangiora Allstars fourth, Clyde fifth and West Taieri sixth.
There was some excellent jumping at the event, and it was great to see so much team support. Some really really went gangbusters to show off their colours!
Coaches ranged from those nearly the same age as their pupils, to others who had been riding and coaching for years. It was good to see Cam Robertson back coaching the Eyreton team, having just spent two years as a working pupil with Jock Paget. He said he had learned a lot in that time and was obviously passing it on to others, although his team finished just out of the money.
The Waiau team may have been through some trauma lately with all the earthquakes in their area, but they did have the legend Florence West as their coach, and she said she was very impressed with the enthusiasm and teamwork among the riders.
Pippa Bishop won the prize for ‘Fair Play’ when she got her score corrected as the judges had somehow missed her having a rail in one class!
There were also prizes in each section for style. Milly Robinson won the Junior section, Max Shanks the intermediate and Brodie Roberts the seniors.
Dunedin took out the prize for horsemastership, an award they were delighted with.
Blue Clark deserved a prize for doing such a great job of the presentation. He certainly kept the children entertained with his special approach to lolly scrambles!
Heather Grant, the outgoing President of New Zealand Pony Club, travelled to the event and said her goodbyes to the South Island clubs, and introduced Geraldine Rae as the next president – not that Geraldine needs much introduction, as she comes from Canterbury!
We’ve got more photos to process but in the meantime, here’s some of the action.
You can also read about Greymouth’s secret weapon, their coach Penny Jones, in this article we did after the Eventing Champs.
