Childhood Ponies!

[Tia]

Following on from my other post:

All us oldies - do you remember when you were about 10 or 11 and we were allowed to ride out on our own? What were your ponies like?

I used to take mine down the busiest of main roads.......in a headcollar and NZ rug

!!!!! I used to tie them up outside the sweet shop and go in and chose my sweeties for the day. Pony just stood outside on the pavement.

It was definitely not unknown for my to hack 6 -10 miles to a show and stay there for the whole day and enter every competition going!

I used to ride the 7 miles to the beach on a REALLY busy A-road!!! Stayed at the beach for hours and hours galloping through the sea.

Probably loads more stuff that I would never let my children do!! What did you guys get up to?

 

[GTs]

When I was 11 I was allowed to hack out on my own, but my mum would meet me about half way with a drink and a biscuit. She would also be waiting at any busy road to walk me accross.

At the same age at the same barn I used to ride a point to pointer who I would go bombing round the field with!!! FEARLESS!!

 

[nelson]

Like you I would hack to shows do showing, gymkhana, jumping or go to a pony club rally etc and hack home again. If there was a 'busy' crossing or right turn on an A road or dual carrigway there would have been an adult there for safety.

Ride bareback as it saved tack cleaning

around the woods playing tag or jumping the x/c fences or anything else available that was jumpable (including seats)
When we went to a show in a lorry, we were allowed to travel in the luton

as no living in lorries then

Used to hack up to 1 1/2 hours to meet, hunt most of day and hack home afterwards, sometimes got a lift part of the way if there was a lorry or trailer heading in my direction load and unload on main rds. Those days getting a lift from a virtual stranger was quite safe and could save me a lot of hacking.
I was not a kid on a pony then, but the one I hunted was only 14.3 and I was in teens, so it sort of counts.

Makes me feel really old now

 

[Enfys]

My mother was a pony nut, she used to collect them! We had about 6 in the paddock to choose from (horseless friends did very well out of us!) Mostly little welsh crosses from Exeter market.

We used to ride for hours at the weekend, squashed sandwiches shoved in
anorak (!) pockets, velvet hats, jeans and wellies, with not a speck of hi-viz (not invented then anyway!) in sight. We'd hack around the village collecting friends then going to the forestry and racing full pelt around a circuit over jumps we'd made from fallen trees.
I can't ever remember being wet, or cold or even damaged by the falls, apart from the busted ankle sustained racing around the hay fields over hay bale hurdles (ever do that?!

) I rode about 4 miles home, untacked and sorted pony before hopping indoors and saying I thought I'd twisted my ankle!

If my parents worried I don't recall them ever showing it. We would tell them where we were going and then, somehow, end up going miles in the other direction!

Like you Tia, I thought nothing of hacking miles to a hunt, or a show at the crack of dawn, doing every class going and then hacking home unplaiting as I went, with, in my case, maybe one little rosette fluttering proudly on the bridle.

I can't remember ever not wanting to ride or be with my ponies. Everything seemed to be more simple and basic, perhaps because there wasn't the choice that we have now. Definitely Happy Days.

 

[Tia]

OMG!! We were twins!

I used to gallop around the stubble fields careering over the bales of jumps we had made.

I also used to tell my parents where I was going - only to disappear off into the wilderness, absolutely no where near the place I had intended going to LOL!!

We had loads of rivers where I lived, some were deep enough to take the ponies swimming. We used to bag up a picnic and traipse off into the forest and then have our lunch on the banks of the river and then take them for a swim. There were also old gun-powder caves there and we used to ride the ponies inside them for a bit of fun

!!

My god, childhood back then was so good. Nice to have all these lovely memories isn't it.

 

[Tia]

It's funny though when I first started reminiscing, it all felt like a million years ago; but now I have been remembering more and more things we got up to it only feels like yesterday. My it was good and how I loved my little 14.2hh's; they were both dapple grey Connemara X TB's and they were brilliant. They just did whatever I wanted, no fuss, no naughtiness, just got on with it and seemed as happy as me.................well except the time I ran over the lad on the bike

. Thought I had killed him! He was cycling on the bridleway and veered off into my pony, who tried to jump over him.

Did anyone ever ride backwards? Haha! I did - bareback!; pony bombed off with me facing her rear-end and not being able to stop until we were in the middle of the river, where one of my boots slid off my foot and went floating away down the river. I leapt off my pony to retrieve it - she just stood there waiting for me, bless her.

 

[Tia]

Oh god you were spoiled! Or not as old........

.

 

[Highlander2]

I had an Arab cross Highland called Starlight who was pretty mad, did all the prancing about on the spot stuff and was great for a teenage boy to show off on !!! We would be gone for all of the day and nobody ever worried about us.
Highlander (Fed up with the new nanny state)

 

[parsley]

I used to live on an Island - 5 miles by 11 so I was allowed out on my own at on a really lovely welsh mare. I used to wonder all over the place. the roads were OK as many of them where we lived were unmade dirt tracks so although there was traffic it did not go fast.

Later on I used to borrow a really naughty pony who used to be fine if he thought he was going somewhere new but would nap for England if he thought we had covered this ground too often recently. I used to go on day rides with him all over the marshes - which are great - flat as a pancake except for dykes and sea walls and absolutly nobody around - just the sound of insects and the occasional bird.

It is a grotty island really - high unemployment, horrible little town and villages but I really miss being able to go and stand on those marshes in summer and feel like you are the only person left in the world.

 

[FMM]

Same here - jumped on the pony and off we went. Not just through fields though - we ended up riding through major towns (jumping zebra crossings), tying them up to lampposts whilst we went into sweet shops. We used to ride for hours. Bareback, headcollars. Christ - if a child of mine did that now I would be terrified. But it was a great way to learn how to ride. You don't get the same feel going round in circles with your horse on a lesson, no matter how beneficial. We also used to swap so I was riding maybe 20 different ponies each week. We did overjump the ponies though which was probably not a good thing. My pony only died a year and a half ago - and all my childhood went with him.

 

[Enfys]

Tia, thanks for a lovely post, really stirred up some magic memories. Gunpowder caves! Where did you live?! and Parsley, an island! Where was that?

Ah, the backwards thing! and bareback with headcollars! oh and the riding into town and tying up to a lamp post (if anyone remembers a pair of dun highlands tied up on Honiton high street..hands up, that was me!

) Jousting with bean sticks and belting round fields at Halloween dressed in sheets in the pitch dark!
I used to ride to work too, use my horse as an escort and then back at the end of the day!

 

[Snowberry]

OMG My kids still tie their ponies up outside the village shop and nip in for sweeties!! LOL

 

[vikki1981]

i had two 11.hh ish called midnight (iron grey) and taffy (chestnut), me and my friend tash used to go every where on them, gallop across all the fields take them to all the local shows we had no fear as kids, my mum used to cover her eyes sometimes with the things we used to do, we used to make packed lunches go off for a ride and go to woods by us and stay there all day with the ponies making little fences for ourselves,

and midnight is still with one of our family friends and taffy past away a few years ago

 

[tractorgirl]

It's made me smile reading this. I used to do that with my sister, going off for hours on end. I also remeber dressing my 13.2 up in legwarmers (well it was the eighties!) and going in fancy dress competitions as the Kids from Fame!

We used to ride and jump two up bareback in a headcollar- god can you imagine............

 

[Happy Horse]

I used to have a little welsh pony who would always try and lie down in puddles! We also used to build courses of jumps in the woods with anything we could find lying around and ride in the pond. The worst thing we did was standing on the ponies backs trying to look over the wall of the nudist holiday camp in the middle of the woods

 

[S_N]

BRILLIANT thread Tia! Thank you

I didn't get my own till I was 11, but but I did used to ride the neighbours ponies before he arrived in my life,. We hunted, did gymkhanas (sp?), local shows, and all sorts of insane things.

When I was 11, the purchase of Berry coincided with a move to the South West of Wales! So I spent from the age of 11 to 16 getting up at 5am in the summer to ride on the beach before catching the school bus at 7.15am, galloping madly over the moors and common land - mainly in a headcollar and leadrope, as someone said earlier = less tack to clean

Also used to hurdle straw bales on a friends farm, though she was on her Arab and me being on a cob, was always left behind

, but we did excellent Red Rum impressions on the beach (he was exactly the right colour)

! We also used to make our own jumps out of suitable gorse bushes - an excellent way to teach a horse to jump cleanly (prickles you understand) and also a good way to develop a secure seat - you did not want to land in the gorse

 

[pixie]

lol, I only started riding when I was that age! Because I was in South Africa when I had my own horses (when I was 14) and kept them on our farm there weren't any Health and Safety issues! I used to walk to my pony in the field (barefoot, hatless and wearing shorts!) clamber on her back and ride her around the fields (very hilly) without even a headcollar! Often I was too lazy to carry her tack down so I'd ride her in the grass "schooling paddock" in a headcollar jumping etc. It certainly improved my seat (which seems to have become rubbish since I've moved to England ). When riding I didn't tell anyone where we were going as it was on our own land (300+ acres of hillyness!). Was so much fun and I really miss it. Its kind of why I'm not so sure anymore about getting a horse in this country as there seems to be less freedom and more roadwork!

 

[BundleBrandy]

Hah, I'm not even ancient and what I used to get up to seems so dated...

Riding around jumping jumps I had made out of flower pots and garden canes and sharing rides with my sister...

Teaching the pony to buck with my sister... hehe!

I used to hack down the road to meet the other children who absolutely loved him! and he loved having a gang of mares to go flirt with... hehe!!

 

[JM7]

brilliant post!

remeber hacking to shows..sometimes 12/15 miles away...mostly at a trot!
doing at least 2 classes and most of the gymkhana...then hacking home again...sometimes getting home AFTER dark!

doing my christmas shopping in kingswood high st..tying up pony, getting the prezzies, and going home!
(kingswood, bristol)

doing the stubble fields too...jumping barbed wire to get in and out of fields we wanted to ride round...

going hunting..coming home muddy, sweaty and cold..just feeding pony, rubbing him over with straw and turning him out....

oh the good old days!!!

 

[tamsinkb]

I used to have a psycho welshie called Juliet - got her as a 5 yr old, straight off the welsh hills!! I used to ride her for hours ( not always going far, but having some major rearing problems) but was never worried about anything - my parents sometimes came with me, sometimes not! I'd happily hack 2 hours via a major A road to a show, or spend the whole day exploring with friends - do kids still do that now??

Those were the days!

 

[paintsplat05]

last summer we packed a picnic then went off round random bridlepaths and only got lost 4 times! some kids are so overprotected at my yard they're not even allowed to exercise their pony out in hand an adult has to do it!

 

[Onyxia]

not fair never had a pony at that age, damn non horsey parents!

at 10 i was alowed to start riding lessons, not just be plonked on someone we knews pony to shut me up!

 

[JaneMBE]

Sister and I, aged 9 & 7, weren't lucky enough to have a pony, but every weekend we spent at the riding school. We started out at Hartwell, nr Aylesbury, taught by an horrendous women who hated us! Every week I fell off! Best one was on a grey pony, Yogi, who galloped off when a foal started playing next door. Saddle slipped, Jane went under, head getting bashed by galloping legs! Got back on though...
When we were 10 & 8 we took a bus to the station, got on another bus to a village 10 miles out, spent the day at the big stables and then got the bus home!
Rode the ponies round in headcollars, sat in their stables to eat lunch, and generally fooled around all day.
I'm sure even the ponies were safer in those days!
We often sit down and name all the horses we rode at the 3 different schools (Hartwell, Olivers at Wendover and the the one near Tring which I can't remember name of!)
Pickle, Mr Smith, Mrs Smith, Guiness, Queenie, Dominic, Toe-a-sock, Brandy, Spice, Rumbaba....oh and squillions more!
And every year we went to Redcar for a holiday, went to the busiest street where tucked away was a very tiny yard with a few ponies. Every year I rode Maverick, cute little bay pony and sis rode Jet, black pony. Galloping across the beach through the sea, was wonderful. One year we went and yard was gone

Don't know what happened to the old guy or the ponies, it was heartbreaking!
Jane

 

[sugarnspice]

Wow. Wish could do stuff like this now!!

 

[Tia]

My parents were non-horsey too .............................. I loved it LOL!! Mean't they weren't interested in what I got up to

.

 

[mandy4727]

Those were the days. Used to race cars along a grass verge??! It was a very very wide grass verge and I didn't do it near the road side in case they spooked. Remember Jute rugs that fastened with a surcingle?? Horses were fed on bran, sugar beet and molichop and a few pony nuts. None of the compound feeds we use now. Gymkhana classes!!! Handy Pony. My friend used to dye her grey pony pink!! on Christmas day with food colouring and we put tinsel in the ponies tails, manes all around their bridles and hats on their heads with their ears poking through and ride all round the villages!! Going for rides bareback with headcollar and leadrope tied on either side. Showing off infront of the boys that my pony could do a wheelie as well as they could on their bmx bikes!!! Teaching the pony to "shake hands". In fact I am 40 next year and still got the same pony i had when I was 13 and used to do all of the above with!!! And she is 28 and still as mad as ever.

 

[Toadeyes]

We used to ride the ponies bareback down to the fields, under strict instructions to only walk. Did we hell.

We would gallop down the lanes to the fields with just a bridle made of string.

We did get rumbled once though when one girl fell off into the stinging nettles.

 

[emma69]

Gun powder caves? Sounds ever so Famous Five!!!!

 

[Tia]

This is where I rode around as a kid - the gunpowder caves are right next to the castle. We used to ride up to the castle and through all the arches and then went down to the river below the castle for our picnics and swimming. Great times!!!

Rosslyn Castle

 

[Onyxia]

true, i did get to spend all day at the yard doing work for rides without 101 questions from parents.haddnt thought of it that way..