Family mount - what does it involve?

[8-legged-pony]

Questions in the title really! There's a "family mount" class at our local show in a couple of weeks time, and was wondering what exactly you might have to do in it. Will it involve cantering?

[rtk]

Its usually similar to a normal showing class, you will do a go round as a group and then an individual show. I would expect to see canter in the go round and individual shows.

Some competitor and judges go a bit mad with this class but it depends on what each show allows.

I've seen one ask for two riders, an adult and a child, other allowing all sorts of tricks like going underneath ponies and standing on their backs. One judge threw a ball over our ponies head, missed and hit her on the head :eek: luckily she didn't bother at all.

Most shows dont allow all this, you might be asked to mount from the wrong side, pick up feet, they may put something spooky in the ring or ask you to go over trotting poles, that sort of thing.

They hate to see ponies which buck or pull usually. Our pony once won (a long time ago) after my daughter fell off (not thrown) because the pony slowed down as she started to fall and then checked her and stood waiting when she had fallen :D

[8-legged-pony]

They hate to see ponies which buck or pull usually. Our pony once won (a long time ago) after my daughter fell off (not thrown) because the pony slowed down as she started to fall and then checked her and stood waiting when she had fallen :D

Aww, what a sweet pony!

Hmm., Pumpkin being an RDA horse should be able to do the throwing balls over her head (we have a giant cardboard dice the kids throw from on her - they're aim's usually not too good!) and the mounting from the wrong side etc. although she's not that experienced at shows, so maybe we'll wait until next year. She's almost at the point where she could canter in the show ring but her transitions are awful, so maybe not the best idea. I wish they had a class for a novice green horse which was just walk and trot.

[StormyJ]

Her transitions don't need to be perfect - I won a family pony class with my mum's horse and she's not very well schooled, esp. bearing in mind she normally goes in a pelham and I only had a mullen mouth snaffle with me!

My show involved me sliding off backwards, crawling under her, picking up and stretching her legs, giving the reins, and "loosing" my stirrups. She was fab and the judge loved her :)