Spaces at Rallies

  • Llandyrnog:Working Rally at Plas Dolben on Saturday 8th September at 11.00 am. Please contact Iona to book (secretary@fndponyclub.org.uk
  • Cefn: Working Rally at Dyfnog on Monday 10th September. Please contact Lois to book ().
  • Llanasa: Working Rally with Megan Roberts on Monday 10th September at Northop College, 6-8pm. Please contact Jude to book a space (Llanasa@fndponyclub.org.uk or call 07960 008601).

Hunter Trials & Tetrathlon Competition – 22nd and 23rd September

Please get your entries in for the Hunter Trials and Tetrathlon before 10th September.

Work needs to be done on the XC course, so we need to know if we enough entries for the competition to go ahead, before we start repairing and building the course.

NEW BOOK! The Tack Room by Paula Sells

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-tack-room/dr-paula-sells/9781910723777

Ben Muir was the founder of the Llandyrnog branch of the Pony Club in the early 1950’s. She hunted from the age of five with the Flint & Denbigh, point-to-pointed, bred hunters/eventers and looked after horses all her life. As a young rider she was in great demand for showing ponies and travelled with the ponies and their owners to all the major shows by train. She and a friend, Lesma Brown, started a popular riding school in Llandyrnog and taught riders from a wide area as well as both the staff and pupils of Howell’s School in Denbigh. This involved Ben and Lesma each riding one horse and leading two others from Llandyrnog to Denbigh and back again, about nine miles. Sadly, when war broke out, all her horses over 15hh were requisitioned by the Army and she never saw them again. The ponies, though, were exempt and found useful work on local farms.

Her two daughters, Pauline and Fiona, have inherited her love for horses; both were Pony Club members and hunted with the Flint & Denbigh. Fiona jumped at Hickstead and won at Chatsworth Horse Trials before becoming joint master of the Cheshire Hunt while Pauline evented successfully as a junior at the national championships held at Burghley. After a career in tropical medicine she qualified as a horse logger, carrying out forestry work with two heavy horses for twelve years and teaching the Llysfasi College students. Work with horses continued through the RDA, long-distance trekking and running a thoroughbred breeding and flat-racing syndicate based in the Vale of Clwyd and Newmarket. 

Intrigued by the gift of an ancient head-collar which once belonged to a Great Western Railway horse, Pauline has produced an exciting new book with over 200 colour illustrations called The Tack Room. This covers 27 different equine disciplines – from ploughing and polo to stunt riding and stalking – giving an introduction to each, its history and current status. Viewed through some of the best tack rooms in the country (for example, Carl Hester, Mary King, Andrew Balding, the Royal Mews and the Household Cavalry) it also describes how saddlery and harness is designed and manufactured, including interviews with master saddlers and an outline of the apprenticeships with the City of London livery companies.

This insightful new overview of British horsemanship today will richly entertain and inform all those who love horses. A significant donation from the sale of this book will go to World Horse Welfare. A perfect Christmas present!