Kelly Bowman and Kristi Edwards have rather dissimilar riding backgrounds, but both girls, recent graduates from the junior ranks, applied the same principles they gained in other disciplines to help them succeed in the pony jumper ring.

And contesting those classes opened their eyes to another avenue that their riding could take.Edwards, 18, rode saddle seat from age 5, competing Saddlebreds in a number of divisions, as well as Hackney roadster ponies under saddle, earning the Georgia state reserve championship for two years. She even dabbled in Western pleasure until 1999, when a classmate introduced her to Pony Club.

“I had a Saddlebred that wouldn’t cut it as a show horse,” said Edwards, of Monroe, Ga. “She could jump anything, but her head was on upside down!”

After experimenting a little with the Hilltoppers Pony Club that year, she found her new calling–mounted games. Obtaining a better-suited 11-hand mount for the discipline, Edwards qualified for USPC Champion-ships that year on a junior team. And she returned the following year to place fourth overall with her “Party Ponies” team. Their placing earned them a spot in the Prince Philip Cup, where they took second.

The Party Ponies returned as a senior team in 2001, when they took third at the USPC Championships. With this impressive record, Edwards tried out for the international games team and was selected as one of the five riders to represent the United States the following year. While spending two weeks in Scotland and Great Britain, the team took second place in their main competition, held at the Royal Windsor Horse Show (Great Britain).

“Prince Philip gave us our medals and shook our hands, and Queen Elizabeth was even there,” Edwards re-called.

Later in 2002 she took her games experience outside of the Pony Club arena when she was selected for the U.S. Mounted Games Associ-ation’s 20-rider world squad.

Partway through that year, she began leasing Indiana Jones, a 13.1-hand registered Quarter Pony as her new games mount, but she also decided to try her hand with him in Pony Club’s pony jumper division. They went on to compete in the 2003 USPC Show Jump-ing Championships, where all but one of their rounds was faultless.

Earlier that year, Edwards’ parents sprung “Indy’s” purchase on her as a birthday present.

“His owner had done junior games with him and taken him to Nationals. We’d leased him because she really didn’t want to sell him,” Edwards explained. “For my birthday they said I could choose him or a car. I really needed a car, but I had to pick him.”

The next year, Edwards began competing Indy in the pony jumper division in A-rated shows with Stephanie Parker-Cumming, her coach from the championship team. She qualified for USPC Championships again and was picked to represent USPC on their pony jumper team at the 2004 U.S. Equestrian Federation Pony Finals in Lexington, Va. The two competitions were slated for consecutive weeks that August.

But her prospects of riding in either looked bleak after a horse fell on her that summer, tearing a ligament in her ankle and leaving her bound by a cast.
“I went to Nationals in crutches to watch, and everyone said I wouldn’t be able to go to Pony Finals the next week, but I was determined to go since it was my last year [before aging out of the division],” she said. “I begged the doctor to take it off, and he did, the day before Pony Finals!”

Despite her injury, Edwards and Indy helped their team earn the bronze medal, USPC’s first in that competition.

Crossover Skills

Having never competed in the hunters or jumpers until the year before the Pony Finals, Edwards believes her games experience played a vital role in her ability to cross disciplines with Indy.

“Games has made me really competitive, and it and the jumpers have a lot of the same qualities,” she said. “You have to be able to turn fast, be competitive, have good balance and work well under pressure.

“I’ve had so much experience working under pressure, riding in front of huge crowds. The crowds get going then you get going,” she continued. “As the last rider out there, you can’t make a mistake, even though it’s easy to.”

Although still competing in games and an active Pony Clubber with her C-3 rating (she’s gunning for her B this summer), Edwards has continued to show jumpers. She’s competing Frosted Reality, a 17-year-old appendix Quarter Horse she’s leasing, in the adult amateur jumpers. In fact, she sees her career path narrowing in that direction.

Edwards plans to major in business at Gainesville College (Ga.) next year, preparing for the day when she starts her own training facility. She hopes her diverse riding experience will serve her well too.

“I’ve ridden and shown so many horses, I can usually get on a horse and figure it out pretty quickly,” she said. “I can adjust to different horses because I’ve ridden so many types.”

Having the opportunity to compete in the pony jumpers opened her eyes to an entirely new sport, one that has become her passion. “Now that I’ve shown in the A shows, I really like the jumpers. I think that’s where I’m going to start focusing, although I’ll still do games,” she said. “I can really see myself moving up a lot in the jumpers and getting a career in the area. Hopefully, one day I’ll ride grand prix–that’s my goal.”

Finding Your Niche

Around the same time Edwards was taking her first fences in the pony jumpers, Kelly Bowman, 18, of Aroda, Va., was doing the same. Having first picked up a pair of reins at age 2, Bowman began foxhunting when she was 4. She did a little hunter and jumper showing with some of her foxhunting mounts, but it wasn’t until 2002 that her competitive riding really took shape.

Her Welsh-Thoroughbred cross, Silver-stone, now 13, had been a regular partner in the hunting field, but he wasn’t particularly suited to the hunter ring.

“He found his niche in the pony jumpers. I’d started riding ‘Teddy’ in some jumper schooling shows, then a friend of mine at Commonwealth Park [Va.] told me that they had this division called the pony jumpers that looked really fun,” she recalled.

Bowman didn’t have to be told twice.

She and Teddy soon earned their first major championship at Upperville (Va.) that year, a feat they repeated in 2003 on their way to Pony Finals. There they placed fifth individually. They also competed at the Pennsylvania National and the North American League Finals three years in a row and at the American Gold Cup at Devon (Pa.) twice.

“Before, there weren’t really any options like this,” she said. “I’ve been able to travel and gained a ton of experience. Being able to see the older riders and professionals compete, you learn so much by watching. I wouldn’t have been able to go to these shows without the pony jumpers. It’s given me the confidence, experience and background to continue on in the sport.

“I like the challenge of [the jumpers]. The courses are never exactly the same, and there are always new questions asked of you and your horse,” she said. “It’s fun to go fast in the jump-off, but then come right back and be clear and methodical in jumping the technical courses.”

While her experience in the division helped her move forward in her riding, Bowman’s strong hunting background with the Keswick and Farmington hunts helped her make a seamless transition into the jumpers.

“Foxhunting helps develop a seat and leg going up and down hills and riding in places other than a flat ring. It helps you adjust better to the tricky technical courses,” she said.

She’s hunted Teddy and several green pony jumpers she brought along, and she’s now showing another former field hunter, Maxine, an 11-year-old Holsteiner-Thorough-bred cross.

Such variety is a key reason many kids participate in the pony jumper division, even if their regular digs are only as far away as the other side of the showgrounds.

“It gives the kids an outlet,” observed Bowman. “Some of my friends and I were talking about it. They’ve shown hunters for years, and [pony jumpers] are something interesting and fun, something besides ‘outside, inside, diagonal’ all the time.”