Pony Club membership increased by 4,000 last year, and is at its highest since 1998, it was announced at the Pony Club annual conference in Cheltenham last week.
Total membership now stands at more than 35,000, with 2,500 of the new members belonging to Pony Club centres, which are branches based at riding schools. There are now 420 Pony Club centres in the UK, and centre membership totals more than 23,000.
Pony Club chairman Mary Anderson said: “This terrific growth in centre membership during the past year has been possible because of a generous grant from Sport England, which the British Equestrian Federation acquired to enable us to increase participation.”
The grant, of £45,000 for 2006 and a further £15,000 for use this year, has been used to fund the appointment of centre recruitment officers and the production of a promotional DVD.
Read this story in full in the current issue of Horse & Hound (15 March, ’07)
