By Callum Ludwig
The muchly anticipated Seville Pony Club annual horse trials return on the weekend of 4 and 5 February, with an extra focus on fundraising efforts to help the club recover from the flooding in Seville in 2022.
The trials are the club’s biggest event of the year, bringing together riders of all ages and skills, from five years old to mature age riders.
Club Treasurer Katie Gray said there is just a bit of added pressure on their fundraising efforts this year.
“The floods meant we lost quite a lot of sand from the rain, which we’ve had to replace and we then have to pay to have it spread out to cover all the areas where it was lost into the local creek and redo some drainage as well,” she said.
“Our kids obviously love their horse riding and we’ve had such a tough spring and winter where we weren’t able to do a lot of cross country jumping which the kids will love, and the Pony Club provides such a great community and family atmosphere.”
The event will be the first time for many riders to jump cross country in many months, with the club cross country course unusable for much of 2022 due to the excessive rain and most horse riding events ended up being cancelled.
Ms Gray said the dressage and show jumping events will likely be held on the Saturday, with cross country on Sunday.
“We’ll have little tiny kids on tiny little ponies practicing really low-level jumps right up to open sections which you can be of any age to enter, with the top levels of the Pony Club at Wandin park which is just up the road for us and an amazing venue,” she said.
“It’s a beautiful place to sit and watch the cross country and the show jumping and everyone is welcome to come to watch as well, it’s a great spectator sport.”
The event will be hosted at Wandin Park 305 Victoria Road, Gruyere with trade stands, catering, overnight accommodation and entertainment all offered and plenty of support from local sponsors such as Yarra Valley Toyota.
Ms Gray said it’s also great to have seen the Seville Pony Club’s membership steadily increasing.
“I think it’s a great sport for children because it teaches them a certain amount of responsibility and courage and helps make them a bit more resilient after the tough few years we’ve had,” she said.
“It gets them outside and they are able to really challenge themselves and set themselves goals and achieve them whilst working with a sometimes unpredictable partner in their horse.”
