Ponies: Not Just for Kids Any More

Smaller equines are upping the fun for many adult dressage riders—and they’re holding their own against the big guys in the show ring.

By Sue Weakley

Reprinted from the January/February 2024 issue of USDF Connection magazine

The popularity of ponies and small horses for dressage is exploding, and fans of vertically challenged equines are eager to share their enthusiasm.

Adult riders have finally gotten on the pony bandwagon, and their passion for the pint-sized mounts teeters on the verge of cult-like adoration. Quick to extol the virtues of their petite partners, these converts aren’t going back to the big warmbloods, and they want everyone to be a member of the dressage sport pony club.

From riders and breeders to the creator of the National Dressage Pony Cup competition, we talked to a bevy of pony pals who agree that ponies aren’t just for kids any more.

“I Wish Everyone Would Buy a Pony”

Lauren Chumley, of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, has been riding ponies since she was a 15-year-old working student at a Norwegian Fjord breeding farm. Today, the dressage pro not only competes ponies (and big warmbloods, too) to the Grand Prix level; she wishes she could talk all her adult-amateur riders into doing the same.

“Ponies are cool because they’re so much easier to ride than a big horse,” Chumley says. “I think they’re easier to package together; they’re easier to motivate. I also think the ponies are just a little bit easier on the body,’ she says, counting herself among those riders of a certain age whose bodies would benefit from an easier ride. “It’s so much easier to collect and compress a 14.2-hand pony than a 17.2-hand rhinoceros.”

Sales are a big part of Chumley’s business model, and she says she fields a lot more calls for small horses over big ones: “If I get a pony in that has a flying change and it’s a decent ride, it sells so fast.”

Chumley wishes she could talk all of her students into buying ponies. In her experience, dressage professionals continually battle what she calls the stigma against smaller mounts perpetuated not by the trainers themselves, but by “the amateur ladies who think they need this big European warmblood to look the part.

“We all beg you to please buy ponies,” she continues, “because you’re going to feel more confident, you’re going to feel safer, and you’re going to have more fun, which is going to make my job a lot easier!” she laughs. “When I’m 60, I better not be riding 17.1-hand freaking giant, 1,600-pound Dutch Warmbloods!“

Insights on Training and Competing Ponies

Instructor/trainer, competitor, and USEF “r” dressage judge Angelia “Ange” Bean, who operates Straight Forward Dressage in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, has been riding modest-sized equines for more than half her life. Ponies, she says, are lot of fun in a small package—plus they’re crazy smart.

Maneuverability is a pony’s strong suit, and as a result it’s easier for a pony to garner points for accuracy in a dressage test than it is for a larger horse, Bean finds.

“If you want a simple change as we cross the center line on a smart pony, I can put that sucker right there,” she explains. “I can get deep- er into the corner so I have more setup time for my medium trots. I can get those little butts down to make the pirouettes. Am I going to have comments [from the judge] about swing through the back when the horse wears a size 69 blanket? Probably—but, you know, I’ll agree with those comments.”

“They’re just a gas,” Bean says of her petite partners. “They’re absolutely the most fun.”

They’re in with the in-Crowd

Nancy Hinz started riding ponies in 1991 when she was the full-time trainer and instructor for the Texas-based Welsh Cob pony breeder Madoc Farms. She showed Madoc’s own 14.1-hand Welsh Cob stallion, Kentchurch Chime, to Grand Prix in the early 1990s, and they were crowd favorites when competing in the Grand Prix Freestyle.

“I just loved the breed,” Hinz says, “and so I stuck with it.” She now owns a young grandson of “Chime,” Dragon’s Lair Diplomat.

In truth, there’s nothing new about adults riding ponies, Hinz says, but she believes it’s become more ac- ceptable in dressage in recent years. Echoing Chumley, she says that ponies and small horses may be more suitable for some amateur riders than the huge, powerful warmbloods.

“A lot of fancy ponies out there can bring the power level down to a level that amateurs can ride,” says Hinz—but she cautions that ponies aren’t necessarily an easy ride simply because of their size. When someone comments on how cute her pony is, she says, she thinks to herself: “Yeah, he’s really cute. Here, you wanna sit on him?”

Mischief Managed

Lisa Brezina has been breeding Welsh Cobs for about 20 years and maintains a waiting list for her young ponies and pony/warmblood crosses at her Castleberry Welsh Cobs and Sport Horses in Cloverdale, Indiana. She says that the breed was “created to work and to earn their keep, which works very well with breeding for sport.” That’s why Welsh Cobs, she says, are hailed for their sturdiness, longevity, movement, trainability, bravery, and intelligence.

“But the best part about them is they are fun!” says Brezina. “Just last night, somebody wrote in her Instagram story that her 15.1-hand Cob had grabbed her keys and was holding them up over her head. She’s only five feet one, and she knew he was doing it on purpose.

You have to have a sense of humor to have a pony because they’ll do stuff like that. They get into the water troughs, and if you’re working on a fence or something, they might steal tools or they’ll steal your hat.”

When it’s time to work, though, her ponies are all business, Brezina says. “If they trust you and you take the time, once they understand what you want, they’re like, OK.”

As for that mischievous key-snatching Cob, his antics don’t bother his owner in the least, according to Brezina. The owner “said that, on a very personal level, a feisty big horse can intimidate her or scare her, but a Cob can be feisty and she just giggles and finds it fun.”

Leveling the Playing Field

No, you don’t have to have a “17.2-hand rhinoceros” to score well in dressage. In Hinz’s opinion, dressage judges generally score ponies fairly and have come a long way toward understanding pint-sized competitors in the dressage ring. All equines have their strengths and weaknesses, as Bean points out, and pony riders who capitalize on their mounts’ handiness can be very competitive at all levels.

Still, sometimes it’s fun to go up against others your own size. To that end, pony enthusiast Jenny Carol created the National Dressage Pony Cup (NDPC) Championships in 2007 to give pony riders their own national-championship dressage competition. A small-horse (topping out at 16 hands) division was added in 2018.

Riders of smaller mounts “want to feel that they can compete in the sport and be successful,” Carol says. At the NDPC, there’s no condescension. Competitors are taken seriously; “they’re not going to be told that their pony is cute all the time, or it has a beautiful tail, or ‘Oh, wow, look at that forelock’ We all know that’s a thing.”

Today, the wildly popular NDCP & Small Horse Championships draw entrants from 23 states, with about 36 breeds represented. In 2023, 300 equines competed in seven rings, in dressage classes from Intro Level through Grand Prix, freestyle, and breed classes.

“We’re very welcoming to everyone, and we treat everyone the same,’ Carol says proudly. “People cheer for each other. You get a real feeling of camaraderie, and people know one another from year to year. It’s just a really a good vibe.”

The Secret Pony Sauce

Carol believes that ponies’ popularity lies in their relative ease in manageability, their sturdiness, their tendency to be easy keepers, and (in her experience, at least), the lack of vet bills. “And I feel safe on her,” she says of her pony mare. “You know, the ground’s not as far down.”

New Jersey-based adult-amateur rider Beth Niebling has been riding dressage ponies for about 10 years. She began with a Welsh Pony that wasn’t really into dressage and cur- rently rides LLawen Farm Ianto, a “cheeky” 2009 Welsh Cob gelding with whom she competed success- fully last year through Third Level, including adult-amateur reserve- championship titles at the NDPC.

Like Hinz, Niebling says that ponies may be smaller, “but they’re not necessarily easier to ride. Their temperaments are interesting.”

The clever “Ianto” made showing a challenge for his owner/rider for a while because “he’s so smart and he knows the test. He doesn’t wait for me; he’ll throw in changes before I ask.” To solve the problem, “I had to negotiate. I talked to him like to a human. I said, ‘What will it take for you to wait for me?’ He’s food-motivated, so I said, ‘I’m going to buy some special treats for you, and if you wait for me, you’ll get them.’ And I’m not kidding; that was it. That’s my secret to my pony right now; it’s all about negotiation and bribery.”

Ianto may be sassy, but Niebling will never go back to the big horses.

“There’s just something about ponies,” she says. “In a perfect world, everyone should have a pony and a horse, or else two ponies. I don’t know—maybe just two ponies!”

Sue Weakley is a freelance journalist, brand strategist, and a fan of vertically challenged equines. She and her Lusitano gelding, Universo do Bosque, can often be found trotting in time to his favorite melodic genre, Cuban music.