Fashions!! What's in now/What do you remember!!

IN: Numnahs, saddlecloths and pads in every conceivable colour, style and fabric.

Don't go anywhere without boots or bandages on your horse, especially the in thing: fetlock boots

No turnout. Horses must have shiny coats, polished hooves and silky tails at all times, therefore putting them out in a muddy field just doesn't do.


OUT: Your hay/straw merchant (farmer) asking whether you wanted oat or wheat straw and meadow hay or timothy or whatever - and you knew the difference!

Saddle shaped numnahs in black or brown.
Cottage craft girths were all the rage to replace string girths or balding leather.

Shavings or sawdust was the only alternative bedding.
Barbour quilted jackets in khaki green or navy.
Stable rugs with the wide flap belly strap

Short boxing boots that just covered the cannon bone and had a leatherette outer.

You'd think nothing of hacking 10 miles to a Show, spend all day there. Do every class your eligible for and then hack home with pony wearing his rosettes and you struggling to carry the prizes you've won.


WHAT YOU WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN THOUGHT OF BACK THEN:

Stable mirrors - they're for budgies aren't they?
Likits - what's wrong with swede on a rope?
Rubber stable mats - where would you have got them from??
Arenas - only for the truly rich
Horsey Chiros, Physios', back checkers - again for the rich or 'New Age'.
Haybars - you feed off the floor, in a manger or net. What more could you want?
Going to a Show, winning and not getting a prize? What's the point of that?
 
old skools cool! but no do think we have too many gadgets these days! cant believe how much utter rubbish you can buy! i remember stuffing straw under my horses sweat rug to dry him after a wash!
 
I remember
string girths,
plaited cotton reins,
saddles that were so uncomfortable I prefered to ride bareback,
bridles were plain hunter style and have velvet ribbon covered plaited browbands in horrid colours,
long woolie socks turned over the top of long stylo boots, bran, flaked maize, oats and barley came in seperate bags,
and the Robinsons catalouge had about 8 pages!!
 
This thread has made me giggle.

The things that stick out for me have mostly been mentioned i think:-

Puffa jackets

Skull caps with the chin protector things

Stylo rubber boots

Awful jodhpurs in completly foul materials!

Thorse horrendous waxed NZ rugs that weighed an absolute ton when wet. (My first seemless, modern turnout was a shires typhoon iirc... in green with red trimming. I do remember the first wugs coming out and people being quite suspicious of them! I ordered 6
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)

Witney blankets folded under standard navy and red trimmed stable rugs (im a bit too young for jute, although our YO had one on her old mare. I then remember Kingshead launching their stable rugs in the dark plaid colours and going crazy for them!)

It being the norm to see 5-6 rugs on the hunters
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Stubbens were the creme de la creme of saddles
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People laughed at "back people"

Feeding straights (haha, i do this now though) with a bran mash on a sunday
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Petal over reach boots. The fashionable people bought multiple sets and then wove the petals into coloured patterns
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Magnetic therapy machines that you actually had to plug in and wrap something around your horses limb to leave it to pulse. Yep! you plugged your horse into the mains.

Full chaps - suede of course ;p


Now:-

Bandage come back

Blingy browbands

Sheep skin half pads between saddle cloths and saddle regardless of whether it makes a beautifully fitting saddle suddenly not fit!
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Everyone wanting everything in an outline and going to any lengths to do so

Blingy browbands

Horseware rugs

Complete feeds (although there seems to be a trend swung back round for feeding straights again)

Rubber matting (been around a while, but you were rich to have this! now its everywhere!)

Equissage machines and equine solariums
 
In the 70s:
String girths
Drop or cavesson nosebands only
No numnahs or saddlecloths
One saddle 'fitted' several ponies
Bran mashes
Boiling linseed for hours
Canvas and jute rugs with rollers
Cold shoeing only
Colic drenches - glass bottle with rubber tube!
No equine dentists, physios, saddle fitters or alternative therapies
Travelling to PC rallies in a cattle float packed with ready-tacked riding school ponies, nose-to-tail, no travel boots/bandages/rugs of any kind
Rubberised riding macs
Hats worn till they went soft
Cord jodhs with leather knee patches
Having loads of unsupervised fun ...
 
Then

Hacking to shows in the summer there used to be 12 within 8 miles of us jumping all day and hacking home.

Hacking to the first cub meet before we had to be back at school with a car following us caus it was dark

Moaning when the hun t paked up at 3.30 cause we wanted to carry on

MAtching red girth, reins, fury numnah and sweat rug.

Now

Lorry or box to get anywhere

Hunting for 2 hours

Bling browbands and everything in pink including your wheel barrow and buckets
 
I remember saving the foam out of an old sofa because it was useful when a saddle didnt quite fit
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. big square sponges were handy too.

My mum tells me of the days when you brought a hat with plenty of room for growth and padded it out with newspaper..

String girths.

when turning out in winter was frowned upon.

I remember when shavings were brought out
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.


We still use old leather anti cast rollers, leather surcingles, blankets under rugs. Only just got out of deep littering and feeding straights.


and I have fingerless gloves, they're very practical I'll have you know
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For me in the seventies:
never had a rug
string girths
plaited reins
chin strap as extra on hat
riding bareback and only with head collar
bran mash and pony nuts
cold shoeing
velvet browbands
rode in wellies and jeans
Now: never one to buy fashionable horse stuff but my horse has several rugs, and i do wear joddies and half chaps now
 
Anyone remember those big mushroom-coloured riding macs that you had to clean by laying them out on concrete and scrubbing with a bristle brush and soapy water every six months or so; they had a belt round the middle and made you look like Secret Squirrel (or so I was told when I wore mine in non-horsey company
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).

Squidgy riding hats - but not as bad as the ones with hard peaks that scalped you - if they stayed on when you didn't.

Stirrup leathers set forward on old saddles so that you HAD to ride with the old hunting seat...
 
Just got in and read the posts on here and it's been great! Had tears rolling down my face at some of the stuff! My kids think I have finally gone round the bend! It brings back so many memories! And yes the horses still seemed to survive it all, including canvas turn-outs and us with riding boots that were too big and we'd be told we would grow into them! and riding without stirrups so the boots fell off! Oh and the colic drench!! seem to remember it was blue? what was all that about? these days the vet is always called out!

Who remembers Lampwick girths??! Oh and the saddles especially at the riding school, they hurt like hell! Also remember my sister when she got her first horse ordering a saddle mail order, getting it out of the box, bunging it on the horse and away we went! All the horses had velvet browbands! I remember getting a harness thingy that you slipped over the hat which had a chin cup on it, one step up from the elastic, and before they invented harnesses that were sewn into/attached to the hat.

I remember also helping out at the local riding school as I didn't have a pony as a child, us kids would help all day long just to get a go bare back, at the end of the day taking the ponies up to the field to be turned out for the night! OK so we had to have a hat on (about as much use as a chocolate tea pot with the elastic over the top!) but we rode them with a head collar and the lead rope either on one side or if they were strong would tie it to the other side of the head collar and vault on!

When it came to lesson time and they needed 'leaders' all us kids would suddenly disappear as no one wanted to be dragging the ponies round for an hour with the beginners on! Do they still do that??
If the instructor saw any kids she would yell at the top of her voice for us to come and help!

Used to go on holiday to Scotland and I remember going out on rides and hanging back a long way at the back so the 'escort' couldn't see then cantering my pony to the back of the ride so I could get more canters in! And going on the grass verge when she wasn't looking so I could jump the little ditches that ran to the road side!
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Just think I wore an anorak when it was wet, never had a proper 'secret squirrel' coat!! Oh and string gloves! always beige or yellow!

Keep adding to this you lot as it's hilarious!!
 
Eak,some of those made me giggle,some cringe
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90's-we all had Stylo boots,you were very lucky to have leather..any leather.
Muck boots were NEVER done up.
Synthetic saddles were just comming in adn you were either very "in" or very stupid to have one
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Oh, and we all had a poster of Milton on the wall
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Corduroy jodhpurs I had, horrible things.
Remember working at the riding school, riding the ponies (galloping the ponies) bareback out to the fields in the evenings - often having to be lifted on as was too small to mount alone.
Dunno about leading beginners, I remember at age 9 actually TEACHING them in a quite corner of the school. Can't imagine what the parents must have thought.
Remeber the hats with the chin cups, I used to chew mine and it always looked really ratty.
Rubber riding boots, string girths and wax jackets... those were the days
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At the momement... definitely agree everything has to be pink, Mexican grackles appear to be the thing to have along with American gags or those wierd 'loose ring copper roller tom thumb snaffle' bits. Oh, and ponies with funky designs clipped into their hindquarters as well.

Great thread!
 
Really enjoyed reading this thread - lots of things I had completely forgotten about. I had a 3-year break from riding, and I remember watching Badminton on the TV and wondering if there had been an angel delight explosion, as the crowd seemed to be a big sea of pink!

When I was younger I remember having a blue puffa coat with little white horses on it, a hat with a chin cup that made my chin all sweaty and horrible, and huge rubber Stylo riding boots that I was supposed to 'grow into' - I never acheived this objective, and I'm sure that even now (20 years later), if I still had them there's no way they would even fit me now!
 
YES- the rides back to the field, bareback, along the lanes & roads at the edge of London, in the dusk, no lights- the ponies shoes striking sparks off the road surface- then taken back to the stables, about a dozen of us, crammed into the back of an old van with a tangle of bridles and two German Shepherds!

And cold days at the stables; a row of us little ones like crows on a fence, warming our icy cold feet by standing in the steaming muckheap, wriggling into it to the tops of our boots. We must have reeked when we got home.
 
Well OMG i still buy the Puffa coats & gilets and i wear these every day in winter !!!! navy though and not the horrid candy coloured stripe ones or the blue and green checks yuk !
I love my navy puffa , its the best coat i have ever ever bought. Then its my musto's..funny , i was just thinking about buying myself either a barbour or lavenham quilted nylon jacket in navy as they are trendy again with the Arctic Monkeys etc..and are now a cult classic.
And No i am not stuck in a time warp but quite the opposite and very fashion concious ! I'm 36 !
 
No Health and Safety rules for the yard to follow, We worked Sat and Sun at the Riding School, rode the the horses down the main road to the field at the end of the day, bareback with headcollars, leading one either side! No-one cared about fashion? the most important thing was spending the day with your beloved four legged mates !!
Sitting in the hayloft at lunchtime, flask of hot ribena and Shiphams meat paste sarnies. Pawing over the latest Horse and Hound. what did it say at the top of the front cover....i owe it all to..???? who was he?
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I always used to showjump with the white rubber reins, and white bits on the noseband and browband.

Black and white cross country colours, with white bandages and black tape to match

We too used to hack to the local shows and go the gymkana games, and hack back with all our rosettes!

spending all day at the yard and doing things like cleaning my grooming kit box out.
 
How come there doesn't seem to be any local shows any more? Can only think of one I can hack to takes about 40mins to get to. Nothing else though.
 
Riding to the fields bareback with a rope halter, headcoller and lead rope if we were lucky. Up at the stables from 8.30am till at least 5.30pm just to be with the horses. Lunch in the hayloft/old caravan. Trying to avoid leading out the rides. Saddle pads, mostly for the donkeys. Poo picking/ playing wheelbarrow poo (variation of basket ball). Those completly flat canvas girths. Plain brides with velvet browbands. Uncomfy saddles taped together if they split, with homemade sheepskin covers. Faded saddle clothes used for many generations of horses. Wait a minute this was only 5 or so years ago! I think Im stuck in a time warp
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Some things are coming back in !! String girths (ive got a stubben one, it is brilliant one of my must haves!), Barbour jackets are really 'in' now too.

i remember chaskit rugs, hated those. Jute rugs, didnt like those either! canvas NZ's - they were awful too !!

i remember hunter wellies have always been 'in' but now come in all sorts of garish colours too.

'IN' now [for the NON chavs]
a nice stylish jacket from caldene, ariat, or kyra k etc in a country colour (brown green grey etc)
Dubarrys
breeches not jods
Roeckl gloves
subtle bling browband only usually
Myler / neue schule bits
sprenger bow balance stirrups
thermalux leg wraps & full neck rugs
combi exercise bandages
 
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