Do you remember when .

[Skippydo]

Just thinking back to when I was a kid (whispers, some 30 years ago!!

)

I’d cycle 3 miles to see my pony morning and night and in the winter when i got home my hands were stuck to the handle bars, even with gloves on.

When out hacking around the estate, any bit of grass we came across we’d canter and jump anything that could physically be jumped when in the woods or around the fields.

I’d take pony in our back garden and Mum would make me a sandwich and pony a carrot.

I'd tell mum I was sleeping at a friend’s house when really we were camping in the stables.

I’d ride any horse at the yard; get on without a second thought, good or bad, big or small.

When it was snowing and I’d have to walk in the pitch black up to do pony (who was a great escape artist), I’d be walking across a huge field from the road that wasn’t supposed to have any horses in at the time, and my boy would appear!! Frighten me half to death, but so glad to see him, I’d jump on, no head collar, no nothing and he’d take me to the gate.

Pony was at DIY livery with 20 other horses, all in the same field!!!, I’d just walk in at tea time when they were all at the gate, scramble through the teeth, feet and knee high mud that was flying around and get my boy.



Bit pointless really sorry, but oh they were the days, where has all my courage gone

 

[Chestnutmare]

god yeah I remember something very similar to this, used to ride my bike to yard, rode anything, stayed over at the yard in the back of a lorry with about 10 of us we were all scared of the fox noises but was at yard all day til i really had to go home it was so much fun!!

 

[Maizy]

Happy days!!

 

[Ranyhyn]

Takes me back

 

[TicTac]

what a blast from the past and Oh how true! Seems we must all be of the same generation lol

 

[sea_view]

Remember it well!

 

[pricklyflower]

I remember those days!

Also standing in the muck heap with long rubber riding boots on to warm up frozen feet! Sitting on the back of the trailer when the farmer was getting the hay in, piled up high, clinging on for dear life! Jumping barrels bareback in a headcollar (I'd sh*t myself doing that now with saddle and bridle). Oh for the days where nothing mattered apart from your pony and the only worry you had was whether or not you'd be carted in the first gymkhana game!

 

[Katie__Connie]

I cycle 2 miles to the yard twice a day... before school and in evenings

 

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

Must be of a similar age......

I used to remember daring friends to lick the yard tap when it was frozen to see if our tongues got stuck. And the smell of cooking barley.

 

[Nickijem]

Oh they were the days!
I had a pony on loan at a DIY livery yard and he was kept out 24/7 - no rugs, no hard feed. It was about a mile and a half cycle ride from my house.
Me and a friend shared him, we would trot down to the bottom of the hill then gallop madly up, jumping any logs/sheep troughs we could find.
We'd hack to the local gymkhana (7 miles away) enter everything then hack home.
We were aged 10 or 11 at the time and we would have been out all day from 7 am til 8 at night.
Neither of our parents would come with us as - in my mum's own words "I don't know anything about ponies so I wouldn't be much use!"
Although I have to admit to wishing my mum would come and watch me occasionally, especially if I won anything.

I think I would be horrified if a child did all that now - how times change

 

[Ashgrove]

I remember those days.

Camping at the yard, even the yard owner didn't know we were staying over.

Jumping anything, I once jumped a burnt out mini car

 

[competitiondiva]

yes I remember vaulting on my 15.1 (first 'pony!!') who would jump anything, a mad character! and canter/gallop bareback with no hat etc in headcollar to the gate which she could have jumped in an instant if i wanted!!! oh where did my courage go!!???????

I remember pre horse owning when having lessons and hacks at local stables holding the horse back just to gain another canter up to the back of the ride!!!

 

[Stateside]

And look at it now you need a CRB check if you want to say hallo to a child , I am afraid those days are gone forever,they were happy days

 

[Rowreach]

A few years ago I forced my way through overgrown woodland to find a fallen tree that we used to jump as kids, and which I remembered as being huge

It was ****ing ENORMOUS

I'd need a stiff drink and a following wind to tackle anything that big nowadays, on my big scopey horses, and we used to jump it on our scruffy 14.2s (without even shutting our eyes). And in the same wood there was a 5bar gate across a track, with a gap beside it to go through. Gap? Gaps are for wimps, we just used to sail over the gate

 

[brighteyes]

Yep, we'd get on anything. Bareback with headcollars and our old hats with their elastic chin straps and off we'd go.

'The full barrels' were jumped endlessly and there was only hay for haynets and rarely any need to wet it because they knew how to make it 'back in the day'.

Ours were never clipped and there were nowhere near the number of schoolmasters. We didn't need them anyway because we were always up for a challenge. The whizzier the pony the better and if it bucked a bit as well, then it just added to the fun.

Mum was never involved in the laborious tasks of mucking out and grooming - as long as the sandwiches were made for us to take to the stables (jam was fine) mum had done her bit.

I want to be twelve again...

 

[Old Bat]

Oh, blimey...I never had my own but used to work for rides at the local stables...took headcollars home and caught 3 ponies on the way in, riding with headcollar, bareback, leading one either side along what is now a **** busy a road for another mile...never used the elastic chin straps...got thrown on anything that came into the yard to "see what it could do..." nothing clipped, and hay never soaked, and we didn't know what the back person or dentist was...serge and linen lined half panel saddles...no knee rolls...loved the ones that bucked or tanked, jumped any old log or branch, boiled barley, linseed...the hay man had a wooden leg and pitchforked every bale off the wagon into a hayloft above the stables...and now look at me...the world's worst wimp!!!

 

[camilla4]

[ QUOTE ]
I remember those days!

Also standing in the muck heap with long rubber riding boots on to warm up frozen feet! Sitting on the back of the trailer when the farmer was getting the hay in, piled up high, clinging on for dear life! Jumping barrels bareback in a headcollar (I'd sh*t myself doing that now with saddle and bridle). Oh for the days where nothing mattered apart from your pony and the only worry you had was whether or not you'd be carted in the first gymkhana game!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh God yes - all of these! I can't imagine a life with only one thing on my mind these days, but it really was like that

 

[gails]

Ahhhhh, the days when you could get on anything and did, and sometimes fell off but always got back on, and infact wanted to ride something a little bit naughtey.

Now it is something sensible

 

[devilwoman]

yep fantastic days - i used to walk half a mile with my wheelbarrow to get my 2 bales of hay for the week - my kids moan now if i ask them to bring a few sections round from the barn !!

 

[angie1]

Such a different world! I used to take a flask of hot water to school with me so that I could then go to the yard & make my beloved Welshie a warm bran mash whilst I froze & adored her ( & then walked 4 miles home!) How the world has changed.....

 

[H's mum]

... fantastic memories!

Park benches were only there to be jumped - cantering on any grass verge, however busy the road was!

Riding and leading in headcollar and leadropes along the roads - taking packed lunches and eating in amongst the haybales in little dens that we'd build!

Riding anything and everything and the dafter the better! LOL!
Hacking out for hours on end with other children (and I wasn't even 10) - You just wouldn't be able to do it these days would you! We'd hack to shows and enter every single class eligible before hacking home again!

Fit little ponies!

Kate x

 

[skewbald_again]

we caught ponies in a 60 acre field, we were all taken down in a dilapidated old pick up and rode back bareback, headcollars, no hats ... reversed the procedure to turn out.
A friend who had a cracking little showjumping pony which was a bit of a nutter, was riding down with a whole hoarde on evening - we used to canter down the broad grass verges of the long drive, it was on the Stoneleigh Estate - anyway one day Foxy took off and this girl got bombed with STRAIGHT ACROSS AN A ROAD and then jumped a five bar gate into the field!!!
Did anything change the next day? Nope. No new law, no new piece of safety equipment, though her sister who was in charge of her did give her a proper bo**ocking and say their mum would go mad if she knew!

 

[brighthair]

jumping park benches and fallen logs
standing across my horses neck, and getting on when he put his head up
riding via Rivington Barn for a brew and cake, then the Spar on the way back for sweets
vaulting on in the field and riding bareback with no headcollar back to the yard
drinking hot chocolate sat in the hay barn in winter

and my 2 best memories
6am, freezing cold, couldn't feel my feet, cantering across a frosty field and all I could see was frost and his breath, and all I could hear was him snorting and his hooves. Magical

and the second one that made me realise you can still have moments where you ride like you're a child again. Riding in a jump lesson at Talland, forward seat flying around the outdoor with the biggest grin on my face. No worries about spooking, tripping, falling off

 

[MrsMozart]

Ah yes

Didn't have my own

But worked for rides at riding schools. Rode anything and everything. We'd take five neds (bareback and with just headcollars) to the fields a good couple of miles away and walk back. Galloping and jumping and hardly ever an adult in sight. Bran mashes. Standing in the muck heap whilst we ate lunch (kept toes warm lol). Whitney rugs turned back over the jute stable rugs. All tack cleaned every day (no whinging, it was warm in the tack room

). Banking that could be stood on (and if it wasn't we couldn't go for lunch). Being able to carry a bale of hay in each hand (where did that strength go?!). Anti-cast rollers. Stable bandages that went on every day. Having to ride in full and smart gear, just to exercise neds. Working with horses six days a week, seven a.m. to seven p.m. and still having the energy to have a good social life

.

 

[Kat]

Where I used to work for rides we used to ride from the yard to the winter turnout bareback on new zealand rugs! We'd always manage at least one good gallop on the way and then when we'd turned out we'd ride back in the back of the horsebox!

 

[Hippona]

Whats the matter with you lot...I still do all those things....

I found some piccies of me jumping when I was young....there I was was flying over these mahoosive jumps without a care in the world.....

Was it colder then, or do we wrap up warmer now? I remember toes being numb and fingers tingling...I remember having my feet in carrier bags in my long rubber boots.....Plus when I was young I wouldnt have been seen dead in a woolie hat

 

[stencilface]

Hacking up the road when I was about 8, with my sisters on their ponies (oldest sister 12 I think?) and having the police escort us as my pony refused to walk and would only jog sideways up the side of the very busy road. Not a hi vis jacket in sight either

Hacking 4 miles to a HT (in the winter when they were only ridden at weekends anyway) doing the novice and the open and then hacking home!

And at the riding school, being told off when Wurzel ran off with you, despite the fact that the instructors could never stop him either

And being tanked off with on a loan pony down stubble field when I was 6, my mum and sister laughing their heads off, well they knew he stop at the end and start eating the grass