Do you remember when ...?

[eggs]

Having just forked out £173 to have two horses shod I was thinking fondly of the days when it cost £4 a set for my pony. His DIY livery (stable and field was also £4 a week.

Given DIY livery around here is about £30 a week I am glad that DIY is no longer the same price as a set of shoes - I wouldn't mind if the shoes were the same as the DIY though!

On the subject his straw was 20p a bale and hay 75p a bale. By now you will have guessed I got my first pony a long time ago. By the way he was a 13.2 Highland all-round PC pony who cost £250 incuding tack.

Anyone else remember how much it cost to keep your first horse?

 

[quirky]

Hell fire, how old are you ??? - That is a rhetorical question by the way .

My first pony was on full livery and it cost £25/week.
I do recall my father putting petrol in his car and it cost him 75p/gallon.

 

[fidleyspromise]

my first pony cost £650 to buy, £10 a week full livery, £40 a set of shoes or £5 a trim.
current ponies cost £800 and £200 (not too bad), £12 a week each DIY just for field, and £70 a set of shoes and £30 a trim.

9 years in between these prices/ also different areas.

 

[trottingon]

I remember DIY being £5 per week inc 2 bales of straw. Straw was 50p per bale and hay was £1.50
I think a set of pony shoes was about £10 or £12
Entry into riding club show classes was £1.50 per class, clear round was £1

 

[eggs]

I remember DIY being £5 per week inc 2 bales of straw. Straw was 50p per bale and hay was £1.50
I think a set of pony shoes was about £10 or £12
Entry into riding club show classes was £1.50 per class, clear round was £1

I must be older than you as I remember clear round being 50p!

 

[LucyPriory]

The winter of discontent, queues for loo rolls and sugar and petrol went up to 50p a gallon. There were no ready made bagged mixes, we all fed straights and chaff was made at home with a chaff cutter.

Ponies were only rarely shod and even big yards hardly ever had a laminitis case.

Quilted green or navy padded jackets were the height of sophisitication, jods only came in cream or navy blue and they went horribly baggy when it rained and were guaranteed to show the pattern on your knickers

 

[Jayde87]

LOL love this post!!!

 

[Izzwizz]

£173 for 2 sets of shoes? Thats expensive!!!!!!!!!! Mine are £62 per set. I do remember when I paid £5 per week for DIY livery, though we didnt have many facilities, hay was £1 per bale and straw 50p

 

[Honey08]

I must be older than you as I remember clear round being 50p!

I remember clear round being 50p, and most other classes were 75p. Rosettes only had one tier of ribbon.
My first pony cost £350, which wasn't that cheap!
There weren't any navy jods for the first few years - the only coloured ones I had were the pink ones that my mum accidently dyed in the wash.
Quilted jackets were all the rage, but I've got thicker quilted loo roll nowadays!
Ponies didin't wear rugs. If you had a big horse it had a New Zealand rug and a jute quilt. You bought blankets from charity shops for underneath.
Nothing ever seemed to get sweet itch, mud rash or sunburn.
Only feed that our feed shop sold was spillers pony nuts and bran!

 

[SavingGrace]

I remember paying around £50 for a full set of shoes, this week my farrier went up to £70

 

[Godknows]

Ooooohh this post had memories flooding back. First pony 13.2 cost £210 including all tack. DIY livery was I think about £3 per week just grazing and water no stable.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

My first lessons, (one hour private) were 5/- which would be 25p in todays prices. Mum was shocked when they went up to 37 and 1/2p.

 

[alliebaxter]

oh those were the days!
we always hacked to shows if it was a big one far away then nextdoor would drive us in the cattle wagon & we thought that was so posh!
i am very old all of 46 so these prices will be a great reminder for some,
1st pony free he was a welsh sec a & abuot 25 when we got him but he ended his days with us after a very happy retirement. shoes were £20.00 a set, i was on a farm so no charge to me but £5.00 was the norm for diy, hay was 50p a bale straw you got for about 20p.
nobody had numnahs just well fitting saddles.
we had to wear a shirt tie n jacket for pony club, all jods were cream no other colour had been invented! i agree with the rug post all ponys had was a shelter def no rugs unless you ovned a hunter.
there was a jute rug for drying off / ill poines that you put an eiderdown under if needed, trees for standing under if raining!
i`m off to make a brew & ponder now, thanks for a great post

 

[neeny5]

very good reading this

 

[soulfull]

well i didn't have horses when I was young so find this so interesting

I started about 15 years ago even so there as been a huge hike in prices

DIY was £13 a week and that was expensive

Shoes were £25-30

hay was £1 or £1.50

Straw was £1

 

[TelH]

I remember when I was young my lessons were £3 an hour. Every one had one of the old velvet hats with a piece of elastic and no-one had a body protector. Also remember when I got my first car petrol was 50p a litre

 

[Llewellyn]

Ponies never had shoes and if they did it was only ever front ones, everything was fed a handful of ponynuts, Rugs weighed a tonne and were canvas and took ages to dry. The church charged £5 a month for the rent on our field. We only ever had straw beds and sweat sheets had holes in.
And ...cavaletties (sp) proper wooden ones.

 

[Maesfen]

There was a thread like this last year and it ran for loads of pages. Great for reading and reminiscing.

Amazing how everyone says the horses were healthier back then, the old grooms must have been doing something right or perhaps nobody put human values on them so they weren't molly coddled or given varied unsuitable diets or stabled unless they were in hard work and various other things; it does make you think.

 

[JoBo]

He, he those were the days.
My first pony cost £500, and that was a lot back then. My pony was just kept on a patch of grass, at the front of the house. Mostly ridden bareback, no shoes, and we didn't even know what clipping was.

All very different now.

 

[riding_high]

a full set of shoes cost £7.50, hay was £1, straw was 70p, we could go to the local saw mill and bag our own shavings up.
classes cost anything between 25p and £1.
renting a field cost me £2.50pw, diy (with a stable) was £5pw.
feed was the basic nuts, sugar beet, bran and flaked maize, we didn't call it mix, it was called main ring and only the 'posher' people used that!

those were the days! lol

 

[Bug2007]

cavaletties (sp) proper wooden ones - My dad is going to make me some of these.

I never had my own horse but i remember the days when straw was 50p!!!!
I brought my horse 8 years ago for a fiver. lol still get cheap ones.

This post is amazing.

 

[Orangehorse]

Only clipped hunters had rugs, ponies lived out all year round, but there weren't any competitions in the winter, no indoor schools (unless you were VERY rich and had your own). Only feed to buy was oats, bran and pony nuts just coming in. Yards would chop chaff. My small ponies weren't shod, and I used to hunt them.
Rugs were jute night rugs with a blanket and sursingle which some had an anti-rolling hoop.
New Zealand were canvas and wool and I paid a fortune for one that didn't have a sursingle, but it never moved. Sweat rugs were like string vests.

Not all good though as no-one had heard of a backman (Ronnie Longford was starting up) saddles were very narrow and you only ever got the vet tolook at their teeth if you had a bad problem. A horse was generally considered to be past it by the age of 12 or 13 and sometimes just retired, although ponies went on and on.

Much less laminitis, coughing, etc. but there were a lot fewer animals around.

 

[Archangel]

Have just calculated how much it cost to fill my first car with petrol (in 1979) so that I could actually get to my horse.

£14.40 (22p a litre)

Current car costs £84 to fill up.

Honestly, kill me now

Even more hilarious, I still have the horse I had in 1979

 

[walkandtrot]

..."Sweat Rugs" looked like a holed pair of tights!! the good old days, although do Love my Thermatex

 

[foraday]

What a brilliant post!

Yes I remember all of the above!

The green new zealand canvas rug that once wet you needed to be arnold swazenegger to move it! No surcingle only leather leg straps but it never moved! Was very cross when a few years later BLUE rugs came out!!!!

Johds-beige only and just went baggy and see through! My leather riding boots were 3 sizes too big and they were second hand costing £2- I remember my dad had to cut the top right down so they would actually be below my knee!

Gloves were those thick knitted cream and useless in rain and mud!

Quilted navy or green jackets were the norm with the occassional flash harry turning up in a barbour! And boy how jealous were you then!!!!!! Not realising they stunk horribly and that they were freezing unless you still wore your trusty quilted jacket underneath.

Our riding lessons were £1 for an hour private! Which back in the day were expensive!

I know straw was 20p and hay was 50p and we walked to the next door farm down the main road with our wheelbarrow to fetch them!

Same main road we rode and led 3 in hand all the ponies back to the field every sunday night after all their lessons over the weekend.

Shoes I were £10 a set.

Wormers were just panacur or equalan and powders only at our tack shop and were on display and no questions were ever asked

Bits were either snaffles or pelhams and always they had the mouth guards on!

Stirrups never had any rubber grips and always were huge as childrens sizes were a luxury and cost more!

Plain reins only-only the racehorses had orange rubber reins! And very rare did we see a noseband!

Standing martingales only and we jumped in them.

Numnahs were very plain and fitted only and one size fitted all!

And finally every sunday we would rush home to watch Black Beauty as no videos were about!

 

[Slightly Foxed]

Yep, I remember when shoes were £4 a set and we used to hack to the forge.

Riding hat was velvet 'secured' by a piece of elastic, the hat always managed to hit the ground before I did!

It was great to hack on Sundays 'cos there were no cars around, no shops open.

The farmer used to give away straw rather than burn it.

If you were posh you had a 'riding mac' with straps that went around your legs and was so heavy you could hardly get on board.

Headcollars were dead posh, we had rope and canvas halters.

Whole feeds that you made up yourself, oats, barley and chaff.

Ordinary folk didn't have maneges and almost all jumping was on grass.

Horses were old once they got into their teens and their life expectancy was much less than it is now so our molly coddling must be doing something!

And then there was foot and mouth...

 

[PaddyMonty]

You all sound very young to me. When I started riding we hadn't gone decimal.
I do miss the smell of boiling linseed and hot bran mash with potato peelings.
I also find it sad that my kids will never experience geting up at dawn on a sunday, throwing some sandwiches and drink in a battered old rucksack and heading off on the ponies for a DAYS hacking. No mobiles, no parents just great fun. I'm talking 60's here.
Horse were healthier then because they worked, not just 30 minutes in a school or an hours hack.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

Horses were old once they got into their teens and their life expectancy was much less than it is now so our molly coddling must be doing something!

Back in 1966, friend's pony was 21 and everyone thought how incredible it was that she was still sound and ridden.
Saddle sores were not uncommon back then. H&S virtually non exsistent. We used to bring in from the field down the lane, riding one in a headcollar and leading a couple of others. No hats, Hi viz unheard of. We were about 6 years old and no parents ever seemed to be around.

 

[Seahorse]

My livery was £5 a week, straw 75p a bale and hay £2, set of shoes £11.

 

[Quadro]

In regards to petrol im 23 (so not that old ??) and started driving 6 years ago at age 17 and it cost 72.9p a litre !! So look at that rise in a relatively short period of time!!
Q