THE Irish Pony Club (IPC), an affiliate body of Horse Sport Ireland, is a voluntary youth organisation which provides an important educational base for young riders from the ages from eight to 23 years of age. The IPC encourage young riders to learn and ride in all activities involving equines, offers tuition in a range of disciplines and the opportunity to compete in a number of these disciplines. The Pony Club was first founded in Britain in 1929, and gained independent charitable status in January 1977. The IPC was founded in 1933, and by 1983 had 3,067 members. Since then the membership numbers have fluctuated, from a low in 1986 of only 2,878 members. More recently, Irish Pony Club membership has been declining by over 30% from a high in 2008 of 4,540 to 3,154 in 2015

This decline in IPC membership has been accompanied by a decline in entries for IPC competitions. The Eventing Championships has had significant decline in entries especially in the “open” section where entries have reduced from 50 competitors in 2007 down to 14 in 2015. The Hunter Trials Championship numbers have decreased from 595 entries in 2012 to 339 entries in 2015. The National Dressage Day is a pure dressage competition for all members in the Irish Pony Club; the total amount of entries in 2012 were 150, there was a significant drop in numbers in 2014 whereby there were only 96 entries, however entries did rebound in 2015 to 154 entries.