Funniest Item from your Horsey childhood *nostalgia alert*

And yes, I also had those Jacatex riding trousers, with the stirrup fitting, as well as the nylon reins and girth - in a lovely red..........

I had the Jacatex hacking jacket. In Lovat. I sweated for days waiting for it to come as I didn't actually know what colour lovat was.

And I tried to knit and/or crochet yellow string gloves. Unsuccessfully. Which was a surprise to me, as Jill was rather good at knitting gloves, so I thought I would be.

Navy blue fixed peak hat with elastic and separately purchased chin strap, with a plastic cup which rubbed your chin. As well as potentially breaking your neck. Value, eh?
 
I am only 33, but remember when horse rugs were not invented. We have canvas rugs as turnouts and had blankets for rugs and a duvet underneath, we used to fold the rugs in a triangle at the neck and fold back and placed a surcingle or roller ontop to secure.

I also remember not having feed mixes. We had to mix everything together, the bran, barley, oats e.t.c.

No one had rubber matting, just huge straw or shavings beds. No travel boots, just bandages.

If that were like that now, my yard time would be doubled! Although I still bandage rather boot for travelling.

Those were the days! :)

THere all the memories that I was going to put, also I now remeber my hiddious had knitted yellow jumper with a brown horses head on it, and swishy mane LOL
 
I had the Jacatex hacking jacket. In Lovat. I sweated for days waiting for it to come as I didn't actually know what colour lovat was.

And I tried to knit and/or crochet yellow string gloves. Unsuccessfully. Which was a surprise to me, as Jill was rather good at knitting gloves, so I thought I would be.

Navy blue fixed peak hat with elastic and separately purchased chin strap, with a plastic cup which rubbed your chin. As well as potentially breaking your neck. Value, eh?

This is me, I still use kaolin and for show jumping I had a pair of white nylon reins without stops so if you rode without gloves you ripped your hands to shreds, if you rode with gloves your hands slid down to the buckles consequently everyone put knots in their reins, ditto a pair of green nylon plaited reins and a hat without a strap because I cut it off.
And..... a black and yellow plasitc browband yummy.
We called those orange saddles something rude and very non-PC.
Yellow polo necked sweaters under hacking jackets and yellow ties with horses heads on them.
 
Fell in love with extremely expensive Sanderson wallpaper with horses all over it. Mum could only afford one roll & said I could have it on the chimney breast in my bedroom. We waited so long for my Dad to put it up, Mum thought I'd be married with my own children before it got unwrapped, so we did it ourselves...Mum with her "wrong glasses on" and me as a clueless apprentice. We did it one Saturday afternoon. When Dad woke up from his nap (he did work very long hours all week!), he said, "You silly ******s, you
haven't matched it." Ever seen wallpaper horses with disembodied tails? I have!
 
I bought a rope halter for a horse when I was about 10...just in case. Had been having riding lessons since I was 8 and lived in hope...I finally got one when I was 41! And I also had every toy horse going when I was a kid...a Patch's pony (sadly melted its side in by leaving it too close to the fan heater one night :eek:), 3 Sindy horses, one with a broken leg!, and a Bonanza horse that had ball bearings in its hooves...it could really move! I also had a Black Beauty nightdress case which was beautiful...
 
I bought a rope halter for a horse when I was about 10...just in case. Had been having riding lessons since I was 8 and lived in hope...I finally got one when I was 41! And I also had every toy horse going when I was a kid...a Patch's pony (sadly melted its side in by leaving it too close to the fan heater one night :eek:), 3 Sindy horses, one with a broken leg!, and a Bonanza horse that had ball bearings in its hooves...it could really move! I also had a Black Beauty nightdress case which was beautiful...

I had a Sindy horse too - was given that and a Sindy doll to go with it and I threw the doll away!

Does anyone remember Dream Ponies?!!
 
i came across some pictures from about 25 years ago, i was posing at a show.
wait for it, i had bright blue nylon reins. ouch!!!

I had bright blue nylon plaited reins at one point too. They were wicked. And matching girth and plastic browband, obviously !!!

I was deadly envious of someone I knew with PONY CLUB plaited reins - purple blue and gold - which were a bit wider and very cool indeed.

And while we're about it, not funny particularly, but Extra Tail spray, in a green can. I think I might have been addicted to sniffing that stuff!
 
Oh, this is fun! I started riding in the 70's - the era of godawful fashion. I begged and pleaded with my dad to buy me a blue riding jacket - oh, I loved that thing! And all my friends were jealous of it as they were stuck with basic black (the horror!).

I had the string girth and a cheesy, cheap bridle that felt like rawhide. Oh, and my father absolutely balked at the price of leather boots so I was stuck with tall rubber riding boots.
 
I had the string girth and a cheesy, cheap bridle that felt like rawhide. Oh, and my father absolutely balked at the price of leather boots so I was stuck with tall rubber riding boots.

Ah yes, those lovely items designed to boil your feet in the summer and provide you with frostbite in the winter? Remember them well!!!

You lucky thing though - I, too, am a child of the seventies and I only had a black jacket!!
 
Ah yes, those lovely items designed to boil your feet in the summer and provide you with frostbite in the winter? Remember them well!!!
To go with the chilblains on your thighs from the ridiculously thin two way stretch jodhs, which as mentioned above, took a week to get off when wet.
 
Yes paseley puffa, wax smelly jacket. The free red hoof pick. An obsession with therwells (the naughty shetland!) cups ornimates etc... Imaginary showjumping in the back garden, Real jumps mind (paint pots and broom handles). Also my bike could turn into a horse (don't tell anyone!) Tee Hee
 
did anyone else use to play "ponies" with your mates in the playground...fess up !! We used to have about five kids being ponies, and the others would pick feet out, groom, tack up and ride..... this of course was in between us acting out Grease and abba stuff.
 
Love this thread! Jacatex riding trousers - check! Oh how I loved my Jacatex catalogue. No internet shopping in those days.
When we went for lessons we would be dressed in cream jodhs (didn't get coloured ones then), shirts and ties (plain - might get away with a horseshoe stock pin but tie had to be PC or plain), hacking jacket and very polished jod boots. Our hats were velevet - one very racy child had a brown one - with elastic (which I cut off as soon as I reached teenage years). Same as for shows, basically. Harry Hall for lessons/shows/PC rallies and good old Jacatex for everything else. String gloves - very slippy and horrid in the rain. My godmother gave me a leather pair when I was about 11 and I thought they were just bliss.
Ponies had string girths to match their colour - red for greys, royal blue for dark bays and black, green for chestnuts and bright bays. No such delights as coloured reins (I'd have loved those when I was a kid!)
By the time all those lovely cute and coloured items became available I was too old to wear them! I'd have adored pink jods with horseshoes on when I was little!
Now I'm so old I can get away with indulging my pinkness - people just think I'm a mad old bat in her second childhood. Have drawn the line at pink jods though - saving those until the next significant birthday! Hope Im still riding at 80 - just watch out for the bling then!
 
did anyone else use to play "ponies" with your mates in the playground...fess up !! We used to have about five kids being ponies, and the others would pick feet out, groom, tack up and ride..... this of course was in between us acting out Grease and abba stuff.

Yup - that was me!!!!
 
Elastic chinstraps,then chin cup on first proper hat (god they were disgusting),the spotty chin from said chin cup......hording the freebies from Horse and Pony :D

Oh and white rubber grip reins-they were the dogs whats its.
 
I wonder what our children will say in years to come?

Already my 4 year old is saying her purple chipmunk jod boots are for babies and she wants long boots!!!!!!!! OH the Shame

Although she is hankering over a pink bridle and saddle, me thinks she will regret that :D
 
LOL at the long rubber riding boots! My non horsey parents didn't know that most kids had short johdpur boots so i had a nice long rubber pair, so stiff that i had to swap for short boots and chap when older as i could never keep my heels down!

Also did anyone used to get nits (sp) ffrom borrowing riding school hats? Not sure it was the reason for it but i always had nits as a child and my parents were convinced it was the riding hats! Finally got my own after that :p

And those terrible chin straps! One really aweful stables i went to as a kid had them with the most flimsy riding hats that looked almost like they were made of papier mache! So thin and were probably dropped numerous times by young children! Lucky no one fell on their head!

:o
 
I'm one of the ancient HHO's on here and my first pair of jodhpurs were a pair straight out of the Pony Club Book of keeping a pont at grass. Sticky out bits at the top and looked like wings. They were calvary twill and second hand, as were most of my riding clothes in the early days. I also had a very nice pair of brown jodhpur boots with a strap around the ankle to go with them.

Saddle? I didn;t have one for the first 6 months I owned my pony and I rode indian style everywhere untill a wealthy friend of my parents lent me a one. I eventually got my own after I had saved up and bought one. ( second hand of course from good old Sandon Saddlery)
 
"Now I'm so old I can get away with indulging my pinkness - people just think I'm a mad old bat in her second childhood. Have drawn the line at pink jods though - saving those until the next significant birthday! Hope Im still riding at 80 - just watch out for the bling then!"
fireflymac, you need to join our RC, we are doing a 13 mile sponsored 'Pink Your Ride' on Sunday, pinks jhods are essential :D :D And I remember 'trews' and rode in those until I got a pair of two way stretch jhods from jacatex and a second hand pair of none stretch ones and those horrid rubber macs (I thought mine was wonderful at the time) and the long rubber boots which froze your toes off, the cork lined hat, with knicker elastic strap..........
 
I had some horrendous items. Really hideous sting sweat rugs that grew and grew every time you used them, thought I was the bees knees when I got some stretchy jhods which cut off my circulation from the knee downwards with legwarmers (stripey) to wear over them:o. Long leather boots were a right of passage I was still in short boots till I was about 15/16!! But pride of place has to go to the woollen day rug - I saved for a year and got it for Christmas - carefully cut out my initials from felt and sewed them on! Oh and every year we got a Dandy brush and hoof oil in our stocking lord knows where they all went!!:D
 
when I was about 14 or 15, I went mad and had my pony clipped. We had no electric in our paddock which had a sort of field shelter/stable affair - so I borrowed a stable over the road from the blessed Jean Sansome, who was always so nice and encouraging.

He was hunter clipped, and had a jute rug, couldn't afford a nice Newmarket blanket (now mysteriously called German blankets, is this what we fought in two wars for, lol) so he had an old one off my bed, folded to a point and tucked under his jute anti cast roller!

For outdoors, a green canvas New Zealand with a wool lining which weighed an absolute ton.

He looked BEAUTIFUL and it was one of the best days of my life, I kept trudging down the paddock with a torch to look at him. Pure joy.
 
Ah, clinging to the banister at the base of the stairs while my sister tried to pull my long rubber boots off! There was my bright jewel green short stick; I was upset when it died. A very large, thick blue wool jumper, probably a ski sweater of my dad's from very long ago, was my winter stand-by, along with multiple other layers. Looked hideous! But did its job in -20 C temperatures. The sheet metal box I made in shop class, used to store money to save up for a horse (that my parents were never going to let me get)! I eventually wised up and put the money in the bank. Pics of Ahlerich on the wall...and the Black Stallion...and my favourites from the horse calendars I got every year.
 
Oh how fab reading everyone's replies to this one . . . and yes i had some of the things mentioned the back of my bedroom door had the stable stick on i thought it was fab.
i had my first pony for Xmas but didn't get a saddle till my birthday (April) i learnt to 'stick on' fast. and yes i still have my orange saddle ! complete with yellow string girth !!
numnahs today !!!! there is one in every colour my first one was a piece of wool blanket from my grandads old navy bag cut in a rectangle.
as for the jute rugs omg how did the horses ever walk wearing them !!! sooo heavy.

and although i was only a kid all the stable jobs had to be done before any riding something i still do today ( bless you Nan rip)
 
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