Pony Club rides again and expands its horizons

SALISBURY — On Sunday, Sept. 23, for the first time in many years, it was a boy who won the Lakeville Open Horse Show. The young gentleman in question was Gavin Akroyd of Lenox, Mass., who earned first place in the show hunter category on his horse, Citrine.

The reaction was surprise and good cheer.

“We had a boy riding!” said Shannon Allyn, district commissioner for the Lakeville Pony Club, an equestrian educational program comprised mostly of spirited young middle school girls with braids woven with pastel ribbons. 

“We don’t usually have a young man show here. The boys are few and far between. I don’t know why. It’s a great sport, and it’s a lot of hard work.”

It’s possible the girls were a bit too focused on settling their nerves before heading into their own events to notice the competition. 

The butterflies before showing is one thing Allyn said never changes, even as the girls grow up right before their instructors’ eyes — from breeches to braces, and then high school. 

“The girls change a lot over the years; you always see that when the school pictures come out. And then we lose some of the older girls every year if they head off to boarding school,” Allyn said. “But each October we have our Open House, with a new crop of moms and girls coming in.” 

And perhaps  now some boys as well.

Lakeville Pony Club’s Open House will be held on Saturday, Oct. 13, from 4 to 5 p.m. at Riga Meadow Equestrian Center in Salisbury. 

Allyn explained that no equipment or prior knowledge is necessary. You don’t even need a horse — or horse sense; just curiosity about animal education.