SO often it's a brave handful of boys who head off to Pony Club camp, ready to be surrounded by a swarm of girls. Throughout the country, yards are full of teenage girls, grooming and bathing and perfecting their tail plaits while their brothers are playing football or messing around on tractors.
But wait a tew years and the young men are rising to the top of the equestrian sports, while many of the girls have given up. The senior ranks of showjumping are dominated by men - while in top-level eventing and dressage, the balance is fairly even. Why does this happen?
The Pony Club is notoriously female heavy, and Tim Vestey, chairman of the organisation, admits “rather embarrassingly” that “out of23,000 members, less than 5,000 are boys”. This gender imbalance then continues on into ponies, juniors and young riders in dressage, showjumping and eventing. Over the past five years, the percentage of boys in Britain doing
