Over the stable door: Scruffy ponies please step forward, your big fun day awaits you

Such generosity is heart-warming (although half the guests had probably needed use of the helicopter in the last couple of years).

The night was popular, although a rather frantically competitive game of rounders meant the Air Ambulance was all but called for to aid an eight-year-old casualty of the boys’ team.

He was hit in the chest with a flying bat, but being among tough stock, he bit his lip and hurriedly wiped away a stray tear when eventually he could sit up and breathe again.

Play was resumed. I hear the girls won.

I was sad to miss the shindig but had a runner at Hexham races. Fathers’ Day for Peter consisted of driving me to the course.

He condemns the day itself as a consumer scam and total waste of money but he looked slightly disappointed when I presented him with a bar of chocolate from the local garage.

“I’m on a diet,” he mumbled stuffing a large piece into his mouth.

By the time we reached the course, just an empty wrapper lay on the seat.

It was ladies’ day at the Northumberland track, and the females of Newcastle were out in force.

Orange was certainly an overriding colour of the day and the best-dressed ladies competition produced some flamboyant racing outfits.

The most comic event was the Best Looking Jockey award, judged prior to the first race in the winner’s enclosure.

The lads were great sports. Noticeable for their absence was this year’s Grand National winner, Jason Maguire, along with weighing room colleagues Graham Lee and Richard Johnson, who hid in the sauna to avoid being dragged out.

The Hexham ladies choose Campbell Gillies as their winner, a 21-year-old Scottish jockey who loves singing (it has been said he rivals Tom Jones with a throat infection).

His prize was a bottle of champagne and a free waxing treatment of his choice from the sponsoring beauticians, just in time for his holidays.

It appears the gymkhana classes at most local shows have become something of a rarity.

It has been some time since I did apple-bobbing on a weekly basis, but back then, every show had some form of kids’ mounted games classes, which were inundated with entrants.

They provided endless good fun and were ideal for the scruffy, half-bred ponies who had no chance in the show ring (I have been there) and couldn’t be bothered to leave the ground unless coaxed by food.

It seems they may have suffered the same fate as conkers in the school playground – destined to become a thing of the past until some common sense hits our health and safety law-makers in the forehead.

Rising insurance premiums and lack of profit were the most common reasons given for their exclusion when I asked around the local show secretaries.

Therefore, in an attempt to bring some fun to those kids with the scruffy ponies, I am organising a gymkhana.

It will be part of the Pendle Hunt Open day, on September 11, at the hunt kennels in Coniston Cold.

It will be open to all children and their parents (beware – I am holding a class for grown-ups which will probably prove most entertaining).

My son, Felix, may have little interest in spending more than a few minutes in the saddle before the pull of his tractor takes over, but I am sure this will hold his attention longer than walking round on a lead rein does.

The day is a fun-packed event with terrier racing, barbecue, produce classes, novelty dog show and an introduction to the hounds by our huntsman, Richard Lloyd.

I hope plenty of you can come and support the gymkhana; there will certainly be an excitable crowd to cheer on the young (and old) entrants.