SALEM — A Salem club founded in a fascination for flowing manes, the smell of hay and the thrill of a fast gallop appears to hold a "No Boys Allowed" aura.

All members of the Mountain Paradise Pony Club, a chapter of the U.S. Pony Club based in Lexington, Ky., are girls or women, ranging in age from 8 to 21.

It's not that young men aren't welcome to join — they just don't. Most boys from the town with roots in the gritty life of a farmhand aren't hankering to join this high-brow horse club that uses saddles with little worth on a cattle drive.

"We're still struggling with that macho John Wayne thing here," said Trudy Sumsion, who is one of the adult leaders for the small group with a large affinity for horses.

"We had one (boy) last year," Sumsion said. "For girls it's just a dream. They dream about their horses. Boys would rather be fishing."

Club member Marie Nehrer is one of those girls. At 12, she's been riding for five years and hopes to ride in the Olympics.

Her friend Loni Homan, 12, isn't much different. She leaves school early so she can tend to her horse, Pixie.

"I ride her every day," said Homan, who also rides with the Pony Club. "She gets special treatment."

The group is part of an international association of riders. Like their national counterparts, local members participate in rallies and shows and hone their horsemanship at the Zephyr Ranch near the Brigham Young University dairy farm.

Pony Club, an organized group that boasts a Web site, www.ponyclub.org is found in more than 20 countries with a membership exceeding 100,000.

Sumsion said riding in the Pony Club is very different from the rough-and-tumble Western style Utahns are used to seeing at rodeos.

The club, with roots in English fox hunting, has strict safety rules. Riders are required to wear helmets and regularly replace worn equipment.

Riders also use an English saddle, which works well for fence jumping and cross-country running but doesn't have the horn that cowboys use to anchor a rope while lassoing runaway calves.

"The equipment is different because we do different things," Sumsion said.

But members also learn to take delight in caring for the animals. As they learn and pass a series of written and oral exams, they are graded and move up ranks according to their knowledge, Sumsion said.

For example, Nehrer is on the sixth of nine levels. As she learns, she passes the lessons on to others in the club.

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To help the club, three part-time teachers have been hired. But they are backed by a bevy of volunteers, usually mothers of the members.

Some of the members don't own a horse, but that problem is usually resolved by sharing the horses.

For now, members are getting ready for a one—week riding day-camp in June. Visiting instructors from other Pony Club chapters will be on hand to give up to six hours of instruction per day, Sumsion said.


You can reach Rodger L. Hardy by e-mail at rodger@desnews.com

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