Did you have a pony as a child?

Laurac13

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I was a pony mad kid didn’t have one but knocked On the door of a lady in the village to ask if I could ride hers I was about 10 years old she said no but I could ride her donkey turns out he was really young about 4, had no saddle so all bareback - Romeo was great fun for a couple of years ? after that I begged to ride a slight built nervous as hell Welsh called gypsy again she had no saddle rode her everywhere bareback she gained confidence and again I had so much fun ?
 

Ratface

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I was plonked on an evil Shetland pony, at 2 years old. The unfortunate stable lad had to lead me and Shetland pony round the estate for at least an hour most days. My nanny refused to go near anything equine, my mother was too busy being a danger to all and sundry in the dog cart, my sister hated me and hoped I'd fall off and die, and my granny was too busy gossiping with Cook.
After the Shetland, I was bought an evil Exmoor pony, which I managed to stay on, despite its' best efforts and we had loads of fun, going miles fortified by Marmite sandwiches, carrots, apples and a flask of cold tea. By the age of ten, having outgrown the Exmoor, I spent my savings on a 5yr old Fell pony brought over from Ireland and offered for sale in Horse and Hound. She was a cracker and we went everywhere and did everything until I was 21.
I was schooling a young steeplechaser, a wasp stung her on her neck and she reared, lost her balance and fell backwards on top of me. I broke my sacroiliac joints and didn't ride for several years after that.
 

palo1

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Oh goodness, I had the naughtiest, wisest Welsh Section A pony ever!! She was WICKED. I did so much with her - rounding up cows, getting wiped off under trees, hacking for miles, jumping all sorts of unsuitable obstacles, taking her hunting where she was ridiculously, terrifying over excited and turbo charged. We were never up for PC or anything 'organised' though I dreamt and dreamt of having a sort of competition pony. I think the thing I enjoyed most though was the daily rounding up and bringing in of my neighbours pedigree dairy shorthorn cows. We were epic at that lol!! Other ponies followed but I had to go to horrible boarding school so nothing was really ever the same again. I didn't have the same sense of connection and responsibility for a horse again until my 20s sadly; the ponies I rode after the wicked Welshie were not mine and I only rode them, not cared for them day in day out. I did enjoy riding blood horses in my teens but that was more to do with the thrill than the connection I am sorry to say.
 

wills_91

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I got my first pony at 11, he was fabulous and we used to trundle off for hours every weekend alone. My step daughter is 12 and we have a pony on loan for her at the moment, I cannot imagine letting her have the freedom I had 20 years ago and when she hacks out I am on foot. We don't have a pony club or a riding school in this area now it's very sad, infact I don't know any other children her age that have a pony, yet most of my friends are friends who I met at pony club.
 

twobearsarthur

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I got my first pony aged 9 in 1989. A 13.1 Arab x Welsh chestnut mare. Who hit all the stereotypes of chestnut mares. She was 100% my responsibility. Luckily our home backed onto the stables she was kept at. I would muck her out in the morning in my pyjamas. My best friend and I would take a pack lunch, 10p for the phone, a hoof pick and some baling twine (apparently we could have fixed snapped reins or stirrup leathers with that piece of twine). We would disappear for hours, ride for miles, jump fallen logs and knock on peoples doors and ask them for a bucket of water for the ponies. We had the best time ever, not a care in the world. We had that pony for over 30 years. She was a moody superstar!!!
 

MagicMelon

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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.

Same here, exactly what I did in the early 90's as a kid - got my first pony at age 8 and would spend hours disappearing off on my pony into the countryside, into the forests etc. going wherever I wanted, jumping logs etc. as I went. No mobile phones, my mum didnt even know where I was going! Would often meet a friend along the way, we'd pack a bag full of food which we'd eat still onboard (you could do anything with ponies). I would spend so long messing about with my ponies, my mother would often have to bring me my plate of supper for me to eat off a fencepost. Great childhood. My young kids dont ride (have but not interested enough) and to be honest Im quite glad as there's no way I could let them do that nowadays with the roads the way they are which is a pretty sad thing. I am still pleased though that my first pony was still around long enough to teach my first born how to ride.

My mother thought it was just a phase when I started begging for a pony but I begged for an awfully long time, then she thought having a pony would be a phase... it ended up with them buying the 4x4 and trailer, me doing years of Pony Club and many years later Ive never been without a horse and she still is dragged with me as groom to events although more often than not she's the babysitter for my kids!
 

windand rain

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Learned t ride at 11 dad bought my first horse when I was 15 when we moved house in an attempt to get me to settle in it worked and made a load of friends and was happy for a long time I don't deal well with change but horses have been my almost constant solace since then
 

GinaGeo

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Yes. A fabulous riding school pony. She was well loved by all she taught to ride. We were fortunate the riding school had direct access to acres and acres of off road hacking. I spent most of my time building jumps and careering about without an adult in sight. Great fun.

I owe alot to an enthusiastic instructor who encouraged my parents to take me to pony club, and broadened my horsey surroundings.

I tried doing pony club jumping once. But the pony, who was an excellent jumper, could never resist stopping for a snack in the middle of the double. She didn’t live on grass, it was just too tempting ?.
 

Pippity

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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.

Same here! Parents paid for lessons from age 7 to 9, but then my dad buggered off and we couldn't afford it. Aged 12, I started helping at the local dodgy af riding school in return for lessons. Later helped at a local livery yard for the same.

Crippling depression hit; I got fed up of being looked down on and treated as a dogsbody by all the kids with ponies, and I gave up.

I still dream of living the Pullein-Thompson lifestyle, and try to do it in those rare periods where Blue's sound and fit. (I couldn't stand Jill. She started off being completely unable to ride, and then spent all the other books looking down on people who couldn't ride but didn't luck out in having a world-class rider teach them.)
 

ILuvCowparsely

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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.
No, I went to riding schools,, but did not get my first mare till was 23.
 

fetlock

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Yes. I was 8 or thereabouts when my mum bought the pony I used to ride most at the local riding school. This was mid 70s and he cost £85. We kept him at the riding school (£2.50 a week). Over the years more ponies followed and with lots of competitive success, but I remember those years with "Spot" as the happiest.
 

Ambers Echo

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Nope I grew up in Hong Kong. One lesson a week on retired race horses. And occasionally at the weekend I’d hike up a mountain to a monastery at the very top where there was a sandy track and race horses to hire.

I bought my first horse in the 1990s with cash back from my first mortgage. And I was utterly clueless. So clueless I didn’t realise buying a 4 year old as a novice was a bad idea. But it worked out ok. Perhaps because I didn’t realise he was young so assumed he’d just do everything, like hack down main roads and jump hedges. And he did. He was a gent.

@PurBee your story is awful. That’s domestic slavery! Thank goodness you got out.
 

AntiPuck

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No, it was never an option financially, although that didn't stop me begging my parents and drawing up endless "busines plans" for almost a decade to convince my parents that it could all work out so easily! I recently found out that my dad was seriously considering buying me a pony, but my mum put him off the idea - looking back, it would have been a terrible idea practically-speaking, so I'm glad that she did.

I was lucky that my mum paid for lessons for me, though, and I had a couple of short-term share pony-type situations, due to some very kind people, that meant that I did get to experience the "hacking around the countryside for hours" thing for one Summer, which I'm very grateful for. Such good fun and not a care in the whole world.

I just bought my first horse at 29, which still doesn't feel real, and I keep expecting her to be taken away from me by her "real" owner!
 

rextherobber

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Oh goodness, I had the naughtiest, wisest Welsh Section A pony ever!! She was WICKED. I did so much with her - rounding up cows, getting wiped off under trees, hacking for miles, jumping all sorts of unsuitable obstacles, taking her hunting where she was ridiculously, terrifying over excited and turbo charged. We were never up for PC or anything 'organised' though I dreamt and dreamt of having a sort of competition pony. I think the thing I enjoyed most though was the daily rounding up and bringing in of my neighbours pedigree dairy shorthorn cows. We were epic at that lol!! Other ponies followed but I had to go to horrible boarding school so nothing was really ever the same again. I didn't have the same sense of connection and responsibility for a horse again until my 20s sadly; the ponies I rode after the wicked Welshie were not mine and I only rode them, not cared for them day in day out. I did enjoy riding blood horses in my teens but that was more to do with the thrill than the connection I am sorry to say.
I had your wicked Welshie's brother!
 

Peglo

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Got my first pony at 13. My 13.2 haflinger Peggy Sue. She was a saint of a pony. She refused to school but if you lined up a jump decently we sometimes jumped it but had to do a lap of the field at gallop afterwards. Never rode in a saddle because I just couldn’t be bothered to put it on. We had a track as part of the field and if the ponies were at the end of it we would sprint up, jump on and gallop back down to the paddock.
I remember the frustration sitting on the school bus and knowing the tide would be coming in and we might not get a gallop on the beach if the bus driver wouldn’t hurry up ??
I had the best times ever with that pony and she is still making me smile today. She really is a very kind pony
 

Highmileagecob

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This is a brilliant thread, thank you all for your replies and stories! My daughter managed a similar pony lifestyle around twenty years ago, after I had walked everywhere with her to make sure our nag was totally safe. As many have said, the traffic is the big issue today, plus building on our precious hacking land! I'm not sure I would allow the grandchildren the same freedom.
 

littleshetland

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I spent early years growing up in Cyprus and mum paid for riding lessons for me at 'White Arches' near Famagusta (anyone here remember that?) then came to the UK in the mid 70s when I acquired through a slightly eccentric family member a 4 year old spotty cob from Southall Market in West London. I knew absolutely nothing really, but she was an angel and looked after me in spite of being only 4. We'd go off for hours and hours. I did love her and still think about her...
 

FourWhiteSocks

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My older sister bought a pony for peanuts from the knacker man when our local riding school went bankrupt. I was a toddler and we were not a horsey family although my sister had been taking lessons. We moved the pony to the livery section of a racing yard and had a lot of support from the staff and other liveries. I remember being told off for trying to tie the pony to a wheelbarrow so I must have been an absolute nightmare to babysit around the yard. I obstinately refused to leave the horses alone and followed my sister and her pony around until I got my own pony on loan at age 9. I learnt to drive a pony (with supervision) before I could ride, I imagine they did that to keep me out of the way! That first pony lived until she was 32 and was doing xc into her late twenties. The horsey part of my childhood is the one bit I wouldn't change, it was an absolute adventure.
 

Smoky 2022

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Nope my parents could afford it but had no interest and my uncle hated horses for some reason. My grandad tried to convince my parents. When I was 18 years old I bought my first horse green 8 year old.
 

paddi22

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I wonder is it the area the farrier is in? I live in a rural area and all the local kids have ponies in the field that they just do fun stuff on. Maybe on bigger livery yards it comes across that the ponies are 'competition' ponies? I wonder how much of it is the parents our kids just having notions that are competition riders, but probably just do little competitions but talk a great game.???
 

palo1

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This is a brilliant thread, thank you all for your replies and stories! My daughter managed a similar pony lifestyle around twenty years ago, after I had walked everywhere with her to make sure our nag was totally safe. As many have said, the traffic is the big issue today, plus building on our precious hacking land! I'm not sure I would allow the grandchildren the same freedom.

Yes. My two children have had ponies from a young age and were allowed to ride out together over the hill to their grandfather's from about 9 & 10 y/o. It is 5 miles across hill and common and 5 miles home again from Grandad's place. I came across them once about 3 years ago and truly watching my 2 children racing each other and egging each other on to jump gorse bushes and suchlike, quite gently, without supervision and without knowing I could see them is a memory I shall always cherish as I know how rare that freedom is now.
 

Waxwing

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I loved my pony teenage years and several of my closest friends are people I rode with at that age. I used to walk half an hour to the field carrying my tack, grooming kit and often a bag of pony nuts, ride and then walk home again. My first pony was a ride and drive cob and the first time I took him out on his own he took the bit between his teeth and trotted us back to his field at an impressive rate. I used to ride him home and my Dad, who had ridden a child, would get on and have a go. In the winter we go and feed them after school and on Fridays walk up to the local chippy while they were eating. I would love my daughter to be able to do some of what I did but there are no yards she could get to near us on her own and there is so much traffic hacking is not the pleasure it once was.
 

windand rain

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On frosty winters mornings we would hack to the beach 7 miles away have hot tomato soup from a flask and ham sandwiches dunked in it. There were quite a few of us with our own horses/ponies after lunch we would gallop on the beach jump off huge sand dunes pretending they were the hickstead bank Race each other and ride back through the forestry commission plantation. might just arrive back before dark and proceed to eat a loaf of bread a half pound of butter with lashings of home made jam. No one knew where we were and dinner was often in the dog
 
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SOS

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Yes. Started riding at a local riding school when I was 3 as despite non horsey parents I had a fascination with horses (we did live rurally so they were about!). Had to leave there as the didn’t have insurance for someone so young and then went to various riding schools before returning around 6.

Shortly after I lost one of my parents and I guess my life fell apart abit. I can’t remember much of this part of my life, they say trauma blocks memories. But I can remember being told that if I went to the riding school and helped everyday for a year then I could have my own pony. So after school I’d get dropped off, muck out some stables, fill waters and haynets, the riding school kindly let me “loan” a pony as my own and a year later my dream came true and I got my first pony (not the riding school one).

I remember the day so vividly, we were on a walk in the fields near the village and a horsey neighbour rang my mum to say she’d heard about the perfect pony, do we want to go view it now. So I ran all the way home and was bundled into a car with the neighbour. We drove there and to a field full of young bays/black/chestnut TBs, and in the middle of them a small grey pony. They brought him back up to the house and opened up the garage (!!) which we bedded down and where he lived during the winter. I picked his feet and tacked him up and off we went to a local arena to trot him around, then through the village. We then were offered him on a weeks trial.. but we hadn’t brought the trailer. Don’t worry the owners said, take ours! So off we went with their pony, trailer, tack and rugs for the week and back to my neighbours. My mum said she almost fainted when she got a call to say that we were on the way back with the pony!! A week later after faultless behaviour from the pony my mum and neighbour returned to the owners with their trailer and paid a few hundred pounds for the pony.

He turned out to be a cheeky pony but with the most loving personality. I had many years of fun on him and went every morning before school to tend to him and was dropped off afterwards to ride and then walk home. My neighbour would take us to pony club in her huge fancy lorry, and off would come a tiny little Welsh pony. We won tack and turnout a few times as I loved cleaning my tack and washing my pony. He was a dab hand at handy pony and good at the gymkhana - if you could stop! He was fast at jumping but we never won any dressage rosettes. He also got expelled from pony club camp one year with me being told on the second day “You can come back tomorrow but your pony can’t”.

Unfortunately pony club outgrew us and by early teens my peers were on fancy horses with experience and jumping decent courses where as we were still in our fun stages. We had moved yards and spent all weekend at the yard playing ponies, plaiting and setting up silly courses to mess around with and going on hours of hacks. I was a short teenager and only outgrew him at 14. He then went on to teach many other kids the ropes of riding (and falling) and was loved by so many. We said goodbye to him two years ago at 31 years old after a very good life.

It’s the first time I’ve ever written down my full story with him and I do realise how lucky I was and how idyllic it sounds. In reality I think I got the pony to cope with the loss of my parent and the pony was a reason to wake up everyday and have purpose in life. For that I owe him the absolute world and he truly was my childhood best friend.
 

Leandy

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Yes I did, and my children have also had ponies. Still have their first pony, aging a bit now but happily out on loan. I'm surprised your farrier says that, I don't notice a shortage of ponies around, especially in DIY yards and own properties. Perhaps your farrier's clientele has changed and he is mostly servicing full livery and competition yards? I think farriers try to gravitate to those if possible. Much less hassle and travel if they can roll up to a yard and spend most of the day there every few weeks, as compared to travelling between clients in their own homes and just one or two at a time at a DIY yard. Perhaps he doesn't serve the more family friendly places.
 
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