Did you have a pony as a child?

[Highmileagecob]

Recent conversation with the yard farrier, who says he rarely sees childrens' ponies any more, unless it is a competition home.
Did you have a pony as a child? What did you get up to? I have very happy memories of disappearing for the day with two or three friends on our ponies, pack of sandwiches, no mobile phones, and not reappearing until tea time with no one overly concerned (late 60s early 70s). Our ponies were as fit as fleas, shod every eight weeks unless we had worn the shoes out before then, and they never seemed to ail a thing.

 

[Gloi]

I got one in my early teens and rode all day with my trusty o/s map

 

[Baywonder]

Another one here who had my first pony in my early / mid teens. Happy days!

 

[[153312]]

Yes started out on a couple of Shetlands when I was able to sit up (still got one of them though he's in his 30s now and not been ridden by anybody for some years) then was a crash test dummy for the new forest when she was backed when I was 6/7 and rode her until I was 10/11.

 

[stangs]

Grew up in the city to non-horsey parents; having a pony was an impossible dream.

As much as I am glad I had the opportunity to have lessons at the local RS and borrow a friend’s horse occasionally, I haven’t outgrown going green with envy every time I hear about someone’s horsey childhood. What you describe, OP, was (still is!) the subject of my daydreams.

 

[Rumtytum]

No, I was the girl who would walk miles to lean on a fence and watch other kids doing all the stuff I ached to do. Still, I had my ‘Jill’ books ?

 

[milliepops]

I used to play about with a friends Shetland from about 7 onwards, we mainly took it in turns to get bucked off.
Then I got my own at 10, a career PC pony who was wily enough to look after herself but generous enough to look after me. Mainly hacked round the farm and woods, built jumps and stream crossings, hunted any time we could hack to the meet and eventually went to Pony Club in the stock trailer.. mounted games were our thing but we also won the ODE at camp (by default, mine was the only pony that would do the water jump). I also entered every fancy dress show available ?

Fun times.

 

[SO1]

Yes i saw horses in the field opposite my house when I was 3 and fell in love with them.

My parents decided to move house to a place with land so I could have a pony. My Dad had a pony as a child so I come from a horsy family. I started off with riding an exmoor borrowed from a family in the village and then has a range of rather naughty ponies bought cheaply until the final one which was a 14h pony club superstar.

Went to local gymkhana within hacking distance and then finally Dad got a single horse trailer when we got the 14h and we went to PC and shows further afield. We lived in a very horsey area in Norfolk most kids in the village had ponies kept at home so loads of hacking and setting up jumps in fields and having fun.

I thought myself very lucky Dad said it was strategic and a way of preventing me getting into boys, drinking, drugs and trouble. It worked.

 

[cold_feet]

Grew up in the city to non-horsey parents; having a pony was an impossible dream.

As much as I am glad I had the opportunity to have lessons at the local RS and borrow a friend’s horse occasionally, I haven’t outgrown going green with envy every time I hear about someone’s horsey childhood. What you describe, OP, was (still is!) the subject of my daydreams.

This is me too!

 

[Rowreach]

Yes, we could disappear for hours on end provided we left a note in the kitchen to say roughly where we were, and took 2p for the phone box in case we got in trouble.

I was the handmedown kid on the scruffy pony. A great way to start a horsey life without getting too up yourself ?

 

[Goldenstar]

Yes I did we where from a very non horsy family but the only thing I wanted to do was ponies .
I started with Prince a difficult stroppy over height Shetland moved on to Chance a 13.3 I had a friend in village ( my oldest friend ) and we went all over on our own .
it’s very different for kids now .

 

[Spotherisk]

No I didn’t, parents were not at all interested. I got my first when I was 28, still have him (retired) 25 years later.

 

[HeyMich]

Yes I did and my kids do now!

 

[PurBee]

Oh, that will always be a sore point!

I had a 2 acre field and hay offered by local farmer a minutes skip from the village house i lived in, i even had a friend of my parents offer their pony as it wasnt doing anything but being a lawn mower….so free field, hay, and pony offered, and still told “no”…
….this was after ‘having to prove capability for responsibility of a pony’ for years on end by caring/feeding/cleaning for 6 dogs, 7 cats, flock of geese, chicken and ducks, do the gardening, cook meals for a 9 person household, clean house, iron everyones clothes….and on top of that, also take care of the B&B business…washing bedding, cleaning, doing breakfasts…while i was supposed to be doing school homework and having a ‘fun’ childhood.

Used constantly on the promise of ‘one day you can have a pony..’ ? …i left at 16, their finances suffered due to collapse of b&b business because i wasnt there - and last conversation was told “come back - you can have a pony” !!! ??? fool me once and all that…

 

[Gloi]

When we were about 14 my friend bought a pony at a local auction without telling her parents and kept it at a local farm with babysitting money.

 

[IrishMilo]

I did from 7. Had a 12.2 Section B and then a few years later we added another Section B. I used to ride them up the canal (I grew up in France) and explore the Pyrenees. I feel so nostalgic thinking about it.

 

[Waxwing]

I had two different native ponies as a teenager; at different times. I kept them with a couple of friends in a field I could walk to from our house and in the summer we to hack eight or nine miles to gymkhanas at weekends. I moved back to area I grew up and there is so much more traffic now there is no way my daughter could do what I did. It makes me sad that level of freedom is gone. There was no electricity or running water but the ponies were healthy and happy.

 

[Parksmum3]

I started having riding lessons at a early age in primary school learnt all the basics then had a naughty little welsh a on loan. Kept him at his Current yard as my parents were not experienced with horses and I would have plenty of help there. That yard taught me so much about stable management and care the pony was naughty and taught me how to stick To the saddle!! I then went onto get a Dartmoor on loan who I had for 5years until I bought my first horse when I was 18. With the Dartmoor me and a load of the girls used to get dropped off on the Saturday and Sunday morning and spend all day at the yard messing about, riding going on exploring hacks. Making jumps in the field out of whatever we could find. Our parents would be lucky to see us all weekend. The riding schools I attended gave me such a horse bug I’m luck enough to say I’ve never been without horses in some way. ‘own a pony days’ were the highlight of my riding school days, I hope they still do activities like this for kids.

 

[shortstuff99]

I got my first pony at 10 years old, a sod of a New Forest ? I probably fell off him at least twice a week. But I loved pony club and hacking and spent most of my time at rallies or camp (late 90's early 00's). I can stick on anything now though.

 

[chaps89]

I had a little Heinz 57 Dartmoor/Welsh type when I was early teens, he was on loan and an early lesson in not getting too attached to other peoples ponies!
Then when I was mid-teens we bought my Welsh d.
I didn’t have the freedom/confidence to do some of what other posters did with their childhood ponies but I did have a lot of fun bumbling about.
I don’t think it’s the same for kids now, I’m not aware of kids being dropped at riding schools for slave labour, sorry I mean work for rides, nowadays, and most places are just too busy (around here anyway) to safely let a child go off for hours unattended

 

[Wishfilly]

I didn't- started off in riding schools, and then as a teenager who didn't grow that much started exercising some outgrown ponies for a family friend, and then got more offers of rides- but never had my own! I was lucky enough to have parents who would ferry me about, but they didn't want the commitment or tie of having our own.

I do think it is different now even to the 90s- the volume of traffic on the roads means children can't really hack out alone from most yards, and even most livery yards don't want under 14s on the yard unsupervised for liability reasons.

I also think there is a lot less land around to keep ponies cheaply on.

 

[scats]

Yes I had a pony as a child. Some of the best days of my life!

 

[honetpot]

No. I lived on the outside suburb of a town. I had a few lessons, but my parents could not afford it, so all of my learning was from books, and I got a sit on a traveller pony when I was about five. I was really lucky, I used to muck out three times in a week ,plus Saturday and Sunday, for a small, buy anything cheap dealer. You got allocated a pony and a troupe of us would hack out, on the edge of the town, with the pit head in the distance. The pony was yours until it was sold, and then you got another one, or an unsaleable one out of the marsh field to ride, and you fell off a lot.
It was all scruffy, basic, and a lot of fun, with chips cooked on a coal range oven, and sandwiches made of the cheapest marge and mixed fruit jam, and lots of tea. If the ponies were lucky they got bread loaves that were meant for pigs. We also only ever had ponies shod with second hand shoes, the farrier used to have a van full and made a set from used ones. When I got my pony at nineteen, I was posh, it had new ones which were £10.

 

[Skib]

I didnt. No riding either. But there was an important pony in my cildhood all the same. There was a field by a large imposing house up the road from us where there was a grey pony. She was called Phlox. I thought she was white, I didnt know white horses were called grey, I would bike up to her field and pick her grass and cow parsley from the verge and feed her. It was probably bad for her but I didnt know that and no one ever told me off. I loved her dearly. I longed to ride but at that time, my mother wouldnt let me.
That field is now built over with suburban bungaloes.

 

[pistolpete]

No. Didn’t have my own until I was 17 but rode a succession of other peoples from the age of seven!

 

[silv]

Nope, lived in a town with non horsey parents, growing up in the 60's it was not as affordable or easy then with numerous livery yards etc. I had a weekly riding lesson however from the age of 6. A lucky break came at the age of 12 when I was allowed to exercise some driving horses and ponies for a local man, I rode everything from big horses to shitlands often without a saddle as well as driving them. During this time read every book about horses in the library and learned what hard work was, cleaning tack, mucking out etc etc, but loved every minute of it. That finished when I left home at 18 to go to the city to train to be a nurse so a few years horseless followed but I always missed them dreadfully. I only got my own first horse at the age of 28 when I was married, settled in our own house and established in my career. I cannot ever imagine giving them up again.

 

[HashRouge]

I did. My family aren't horsey, but I was nuts about them from a very young age. The whole thing was facilitated by the mum of my best friend, who owned a livery yard about a 10 min walk from my house. I took my friend's old pony on loan when I was 10, then a year later my Mum and Dad bought me my own. I don't think it would have happened without my friend's mum though, as I don't think my parents would have had a clue how to approach it. I'm 32, so I'm a bit too young to have been of the generation that could just disappear into the countryside for hours and hours with no-one worrying, but I do think I had a decent level of freedom. In the holidays my parents used to just drop me at the yard and I'd be there all day, and I'd run in and out of my friend's house like I owned the place. Christ knows why her parents put up with it, they were essentially free babysitters! We were allowed to hack together unsupervised from 13, and then I could ride on my own from 14 and had an absolute blast exploring the peak district.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

Yes, born into a non-horsey family on a council estate in the 70s. I had pony rides and we eventually went camping and pony trekking in Wales. Parents daftly bought me a Section C. A year later dad started riding the section c and we acquired a rescue Exmoor pony. Didn’t have proper lessons until I was 11 And then only for a couple of years.

We moved due to dad’s job in the late 70s. In my teens I had a whizzy NF x TB that was bought with some medical insurance payout money and I spent many days out all day with him, hunted him and hacked to local shows for two hours, did all the classes we could and hacked home afterwards. Hacked alone from age 13 or so, some money for phone, packed lunch etc-sometimes hacked with friends but not always. The farm I keep him first there wasn’t anyone to hack with.

used to jump in, around and out of private woods, jump log piles, canter on verges, build jumps/jump anything that vaguely looked jumpable like park benches. We had an old aerodrome to ride around and a Roman road. Friend and I used to do odd jobs for local hunting couple so we could afford to hack 8 miles to nearest indoor school, hire it and it’s jumps for an hour and hack back. Left home at 16 to work

 

[vmac66]

Got my first pony when I was 13. Would often disappear with a couple of friends on the ponies all day. No one knew where we were going, we just had to be back for tea. We used to go miles. I went back to where I used to ride and was shocked by how far we actually went.b

 

[horseman1985]

Oh, I am replenishing a number of children with unfulfilled dreams of their own pony. But still sometimes I managed to ride "on holidays" and these were some of the best days I will definitely not refuse my children in this matter, the craving for horses is some kind of special craving that should not be ignored!