Attagirl!

Attagirl!

Name: Linda Milian
Age:   18
Work: High -School Student, Store Clerk (part time)
Vocation: Pony-Girl

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This is Linda Milian.

She is the image of what is good, and of what is wrong in our sport.

She has a very busy life, between the school (she lost a year due to a mismanaged family transfer in France, but she really enjoyed Notre Dame de Paris e L'Île St. Louis) and her job, but she really enjoys spend what she can of her free time here, at the Pony-Girls Ring in Kügel Canyon.

She dedicates herself to training, with admirable devotion, and is not devoid of actual talent. In fact, had her heart fallen for another sport, she would have a ticket to college thanks to an athletic scholarship.

But because she loves Pony-Girling, she is forced to work a very menial job, in order to accumulate the money to pay her tuition.

It is so, because she loves Pony-Girling - and because the current rules are, in our opinion, wrong.  

Her small frame, however very elegant, put her at a disadvantage when it comes to towing power, and more so in the initial acceleration phase, in which her 45 kg (100 lbs) can hardly compete against athletes with bigger build.

It is a shame, and a waste of what we think is real talent.

Which leads us to our proposal.

With the rise in the number of registered Pony-Girls, it is finally opening up the possibility for creating weight categories in the tournaments.

Linda, and others like her, would then be allowed to face other athletes with a similar build, in a fairer competition.

We realize that, traditionally, Pony-Girling has been considered part of the track and field sports, in which the concept of weight category has never been used.

We think it is about time to recognise the differences between this and other sports like Running or Jumping, in which the athletes must carry only their own weight.

At the same time, we admit that this is not the only possible solution to the issue.

The one proposed by our Canadian colleagues of the Calgary Pony Ring, namely equalizing the ratio Pony-Cart by adding a suitable  ballast to the cart of the heavier athletes (so that the ratio Pony-Girl weight / Cart and Rider gross weight is the same for everybody, and aligned to the less favoured Pony on the track) also promises to do away with the grossly unfair advantage that big framed Ponies have in the current state of affairs.

The Canadian solution would allow to keep the current organisational structure for the existing tournaments, with just minor additions, but we fear that some athletes may try to find ways to cheat at the time of the weigh-ins, if it will be chosen.


In our opinion, weight categories would greatly limit this undesired behaviours.

In the end, however, this is an aesthetic as well as political choice that the Federation, as a whole, must make, which is the reason why we decided, jointedly with the Calgary Pony Ring, to propose a motion to adopt either of the aforementioned rule changes.

We hope that the members of the committee will evaluate wisely, which of the two proposals will better serve the interests of Pony-Girling in the 22th Century.

Thanks for your time,
   have a nice day.

Paula Stockharden, 
chief athletic officer of the Kügel Canyon Pony-Girls Ring

- from the notes of the 35th reunion of the 
Reform Panel Subcommittee of the Pony-Girling Olimpic Federation

February the 12th, 2097 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.