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Team Captain, Megan Marr reviews the event. 

South Africa made its 4th appearance at the world team championships in August this year, along with 17 other countries. The team consisted of Sarah Stanton (1st world champs), Annemie de Beer (2nd world champs), both from Medunsa Pony club in Pretoria and Graeme Dyall (1st world champs), Jackie Marr (2nd world champs) and Megan Marr (Captain, 3rd world champs) all from Hilton Pony Club in KwaZulu Natal. 

The team arrived at the competition venue late on Monday 17 August. We were able to meet our ponies and have a ride on Tuesday, but we had our first official practice with the equipment on Wednesday. We were given 5 ponies between us, and then had to choose which one we each got along best with. The opening ceremony was on Wednesday night where all the teams were introduced. We had our second practice on Thursday, and had to be ready for a world class games competition on Friday. 

There were two ground sessions on Friday and two on Saturday, followed by two finals on Sunday. In the 4 ground sessions on Friday and Saturday, the teams were ranked for the finals on Sunday. The top 6 teams went through to the A final, the next 6 to the B final and the bottom 6 to the C final. SA was placed 4th in the C final, and the main A final was won by England. The other teams on borrowed ponies were New Zealand and Australia, although they arrived 4 months before the competition and had been competing in England’s inter-county competitions every weekend leading up to the world champs. All the other countries were on their own ponies, which were all super fast and didn’t put a foot wrong as they were used to doing games competitions every weekend. Our team had one really fast pony, but with 4 average speed ponies it was very hard for us to compete and keep up! With the ponies we got we did exceptionally well, and I don’t think we could have done any better! 

To put into perspective the speed at which the games are run Ian took times for various games and back in SA our team did the bending relay in 63 seconds. In our final we did it in 57 seconds which on strange ponies is a massive improvement. The winners of the A final won in a time of 51 seconds or 13 seconds for 3 of the riders and 12 seconds for the 4th rider, and this over a distance of 102 meters per rider. The team both in the heats and final won some games and came second and third several times. Wales, England, Northern Ireland and Luxembourg all commented on how the skills level of the SA riders had improved so dramatically and were keen for our riders, when competing again, to go a week or two earlier and they would source faster more suitable ponies. Watching these teams compete on their own ponies was absolutely amazing. 

I would like to thank our sponsors: VUMA for our lovely Jackets, Allisons Saddlery for our Shirts and Big John for our Kit Bags. 

Megan Marr
Team Captain