Who We Are

Sport Pony Canada is a group of pony breeders dedicated to promoting the breeding, showing, and sales of sport ponies in Canada and North America. A sport pony is defined as a pony that is bred to compete in one of the performance sport disciplines of jumping, dressage, eventing, reining, or combined driving.

Our first meeting was held in October, 2003, to define goals and directions. A second meeting was held on April 25th, 2004 to elect a working board of directors until a membership was established, and on Jan. 13 2006 Sport Pony Canada members held an inaugural Annual General Meeting to elect board members for 2006.

A Brief History by Alana Longman, founder of Sport Pony Canada

For those of you not familiar with the beginnings of this project, l would like to explain a bit about the history (and hard work!) that has led to the evolving organization that Sport Pony Canada is today.

I grew up on a large Welsh Pony farm and showed a lot of ponies in a lot of local, available shows. At the time (1970's-1990's) there were very few "pony shows" within driving distance, so most of my showing was at open shows. There was no way to track any of these awards - not even through our breed registry. The Welsh Pony and Cob Society of Canada doesn’t track any points or competition records, so even the provincial pony shows really didn’t count for anything.

So, way back then, I started to think of better ways to promote ponies. I approached WPCSC numerous times with requests for programs to encourage performance awards/recognition and, as they repeatedly weren’t interested, I started to branch out. My equestrian training took me to a 3 year position at a top dressage barn, where I learned a bit more about the European awards. The FEI actually encourages young riders to compete on ponies until age 16, right to the top levels of the sport! This really allows the young riders to advance on mounts that suit their training - also they are allowed to show stallions! Unheard of in Canada, where it is next to impossible to get a ridden show record on a pony stallion (this being a well-known problem for pony breeders, as juniors can’t show stallions, and adults can’t show ponies).

So, in approximately 1991, I started approaching the CSHA and CWHBA to find out if they would be interested in allowing ponies in their registry. At this time, the registries were not interested in starting an entirely new undertaking for ponies. In 1995 I approached Pat Clay to start a newsletter to promote ponies in Western Canada(The Mane Thing). This newsletter is put out today and continues to promote ponies, primarily the Welsh breed, in Western Canada. In 2004, a small group of breeders came together to form Sport Pony Canada, a promotions and marketing group with an on-line newsletter. This new promotional group was originally conceived to represent breeders in the Prairie Provinces, but pony breeders across Canada (including the breeding hotbeds of BC and Ontario) were also interested, and so the decision was made to go Canada-wide.

In early 2005, CSHA/CWHBA approached Sport Pony Canada to see if we would be interested in joining them in an amalgamation of Sport Horse breeders across Canada. Because sport pony breeders had stepped up and organized themselves, this helped prove to existing registries that sport pony breeders were serious and ready to pull some weight. Part of the problem in the past was that sport pony breeders hadn’t been organized!

Having been to amalgamation meetings in June and Sept, part of conference calls and invited to join the CSHA booth at Spruce Meadows Masters, I can honestly say that the future has never looked more promising for Sport Ponies in Canada! I know that some breeders are concerned that things are happening fast – overnight success we all know is impossible – a lot of time and work has gone into this project. Most of the work is being done by a very small core group of volunteers, and we have never done this before! We would like to reiterate that new volunteers and dialogue from other sport pony breeders is more than welcome.

My vision for this project is to create the most competitive Sport Pony available. This will not be a registry for "just any" pony, but a registry that expects to produce top quality, sound, trainable, competitive, athletic ponies.

If you would like to volunteer, or join our email list, please contact us!

For a list of goals, meeting notes, and membership information, please see the links at left.