Old Ponies

Shannons first pony was Star who was dropped off to my sisters friend by the meat man as he was really a lovely little boy just old. The vet thought he was around 30 when we got him and we had him for the next 5 years. He was a fine boned wee pony, around 11hh, Shannon could happily ride him around the paddock and had the occasional road ride with one of ladys from the paddock. If he didn't want to do something he'd throw in a wee buck, wasn't anything much, but she had to learn how to deal with that and also try to stop him taking her back to the gate when he'd had enough. Star was semi retired around 3 years ago, he occasionally had a friends daughter come out for a little ride around, but he enjoyed his semi retirement. He was a funny little man when he was getting hardfed, he'd buck and buck while his head was in the bucket. He got left on the roadside to tidy up the land owners verge, and we often had people stopping with their kids with an apple or two for Star, he was well known in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately as it got harder and harder to keep the weight on, and he just seemed to be struggling more and more with winter we had to make the decision to put him down. He's now buried out at field in Woodend a much more fitting end to this lovely little pony.

Smegal is a little Welshie we purchased from Joe in Otago. He'd actually gone to my sister on trial for her kids but her kids weren't really that interested. We took Smegal on trial and ended up spending a bit of money on him getting his attitude readjusted, he'd been used in a riding school for a time after being broken in and had developed some silly little habits that weren't appropriate around little kids. Smegal didn't like going round and round in circles as this was far to boring but loved jumping, going to the beach and doing anything differnet. Shannon took him to Eyreton Dressage and Jumping day and though he jumped out of the arena she was allowed to carry on and still got a very respectable score. She then did the handy pony where he stole one of the storks of corn out of the barrels and went round the rest of the course munching on it, we did end up with quite a crowd watching him as he was character plus. Unfortunately Shannon didn't last long on him as he was only 12.2hh but she had alot of fun while we had him. He was then sold to a Chch family with two little girls.

We purchased Pinky named Woodbine Champagne who had been SJ by a young rider in the hope she'd be suitable for Shannon but she was far to strong for Shan. She was a lovely mare though, awesome nature, she was in foal at the time, and had a lovely wee filly we called Princess, dam - Woodbine Champagne, Sire - Kahu Warrior. Must say this girl had her daddy's and mums great personality and if she had possibly looked like she might have gone over the 14.2hh mark we would have kept her but she was going to be far to small for what we wanted. She's now living in Eyreton with Jo and all her other ponies and currently being broken in. Pinky was sold to another Kylie in Ohoka and has a great life and is greatly loved, such a nice ending for her as she'd been been used as a broodmare in the last few years and really loved the attention and the riding she got.