Funniest Item from your Horsey childhood *nostalgia alert*

Lovely thread. I learnt in the 50's, elder sister worked with horses and used to take me riding, no jods, boots or hats for me just jeans and a t-shirt at Wimbledon Stables used to be Hilcote Stables, then she worked near Hyde Park but you used to wear proper kit to ride in the Row.

Had the orange saddle as well. Also used my three wheel bike as a horse with rope reins. Used to work near Holborn so remember getting jods from Jacatex. The dreaded rubber boots and string gloves. Red string girth as well.:eek:
 
I mian thing I can remember from my childhood was a Thelwells mug I won at my riding school prior to me getting my first pony - it was my very first "show" so to speak and I remember being led around a course of tiny cross poles - I was beaten into 2nd, so the other girl got to choose which Thelwell mug she wanted (they had different designs on them) - I remember I desperately wanted one particular one and she chose it. I was gutted. Could only have been about 6 at the time, still have the mug somewhere too!

With my first pony, I remember we bought his first turnout rug - some ghastly jute thing with a horrible lining which made him frizzy, even had a surcingle! Problem was the rug slipped horrendously all the time to the point that one day we found him with it upside down, standing on it in tatters! I still have him (he's now 23) and he STILL remains rather difficult to fit rugs to... I still have his original saddle and bridle too (18yrs later) - both were 2nd hand at the time so god knows how ancient they are.

With my second pony, I remember being so proud of my flappy over-reach boots (you know, the ones which make a noise and you can colour co-ordinate the petals). They were so cool at the time, as were those rubber bit rings (no matter what bit you used).
 
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Why have I only just found this thread? Pat riding trousers from Jacatex...Yup! They were very trendy as I had some batwing ones first...and jodphur boots with straps and buckles and string gloves and a black oilskin coat. Didn't have my own pony but a couple of livery friends had the orange leather saddles...they oiled the panels but left the seat to make trendy two tone! We made our own haynets and ropes out of baler twine. And my hat was too big as well and stuffed with newspaper. The ponies I learnt on had half panel saddles lined with linen or serge, string or 3 fold leather girths and any ones with saddle sores were ridden in felt numnahs with a hole cut out, girth galls just had gamgee wrapped around the girth. Poor things. And hacking jackets were for hacking!
 
Crumbs - lots - Thatching - no wicking rugs or thermetex rugs then - straw under a jute rug turned inside out then when the horse was dry - turning the jute rug back to put on correctly! - Whitney blankets, surcingles with wadges of pad underneath. Having to Plait the front of the straw beds. Headscarves worn - standard headwear for yard work.
Elastic chin straps on velevet hats that did nothing !
heavy and very stiff 'New Zealand' Rugs - in green or green ! then someone brought out a blue colour - WOW ! Hunter wellies - green or green ! Puffa jackets - Stripey or paisley ! Always wore a Hacking Jacket for riding in. Lessons Shirt & Tie !
How easy do we have it nowadays with modern fabrics and innovations
 
I also had "Thunderbolt" toy horse, Bonanza horse with metal balls in its hooves and Britains Model Horses and stables. Nicked my brother's trees from his train set and had tiny plastic jumps from some hideous game in my field of green baize. The little plastic bridles the horses came with always broke! I stuck fake fur on the horses to make them have real manes and tails...
 
I remember the Gorringe jods with the seam acrossn the knee, so umcomfy!

Cassie toy stables and horses :D

I used to play horses in the playground with a skipping rope.

New zealand rugs and jute rugs!

chin guards and lycra mulit coloured silks

handy whips

string gloves

Puffa jackets, My YO still has hers and its in great condition!

my first full pair of wax chaps when i was 10 and thinking i was the bees knees :o

string girths and fluffy numnahs!

Main ring feeds...are these even still about?

my matching numnah, bit gaurds and westropp over reach boots (the flappy ones)

using bandages and bandage pads instead of brushing boots

not giving a damn about the risk of killing myself, getting on any horse no matter if it bucked and took off with me and loved every bloody minute!:D

and best of all NOT HAVIG A CARE IN THE WORLD
 
Grrrr - just typed out a massive reply and lost it!!!

Loving this thread and am sitting here with a soppy smile on my face taking a trip down memory lane...

I started riding in the early 80's and had navy blue gorringe jod with the knee seam that cut off all circulation, yellow string gloves and a green quilted husky jacket. Black velvet cap with an elastic chinstrap - parents bought a seperate harness for it with a mahoosive chin cup. Later graduated to long rubber boots which gave you massive blisters, fried your feet in summer, froze them in winter and were too tight to get another pair of socks on underneath!

Ponies were all fluffy, extremely good doer, self opionated 'thelwell' types whose main aim in life was to evict their jockeys as soon as possible and go and eat grass. Mine lived out all year round with no rug and no hard feed, just hay. Turnouts were 'New Zealands' and were stiff green monstrously heavy canvas. I can remember how excited peeps were when they brought out a blue version - and when the first proper stable rug came out, think they were blue with red binding and red surcingles. Had the red fluffy numhah, red girth and red plaited nylon reins which would give me rope burns when pony stuck his head down and b*ggered off which was a fairly regular occurence. I always wanted a Newmarket Day rug and my pony in at night in the winter with a hunter clip but it never happened :-)

Scary Riding instructors of dubious sexuality with massive bottoms, green hunter wellies or long leather boots, hair in a net with faded velvet hat, red broken veined cheeks and a voice like a foghorn!! If you were silly enough to fall off and let go of your reins you got shouted at to get up and catch your pony - then they'd check to see if you were ok. Would go out hacking for hours with no adult and nobody worried about it. Jumped with stirrups crossed, reins knotted and arms either folded or on our heads.

Used to jump the dog round homemade jumps in the garden and stuff the cat in my Sindy trailer and tow him around with the Sindy Range Rover. And still have a huge collection of toy horses (the farm collection) which all have names and had rugs made out of paper in the winter. Showjumpers were household names - Ryans Son, Anglezarke, Deister, Jappeloup etc and I was always allowed to stay up late to watch HOYS.

FULL tv coverage of Burghley and Badminton XC was on BBC1 on the Sat and you got a couple of hours of SJ on the Sunday - Lucinda Green, Ian Stark, Ginny Leng (now Holgate) were my heroes :-)

Anyway I seem to have written an essay - again!!
 
What a fun thread!

I still have my blue striped Puffa, and still wear it, lots of people of here in the States think it's super cool!!!?

Plastic chin cups - so glad I started wearing a skull cap!

Plaited pony club coloured reins. Still have my plastic brow bands, in black and yellow, blue and white, and red, white and blue velvet!

Britains horses and ponies, I think I had every model!!

The WH Smith win a pony competition, I was disappointed every year!!
 
Started riding 1980 ish.

Lessons were 50p per hour!!!! (I wish)

My first pony was callled Oajah was 2 years old, broken in and cost £50 from the local gypsies.

Favorite book was called "Haki the Shetland Pony" I still have it.

The first pony I ever rode was called Shrimp!

Rubber riding boots (Yuk)

Used to hack miles and miles to local shows!
 
Taffyhorse said:
Grrrr - just typed out a massive reply and lost it!!!


Scary Riding instructors of dubious sexuality with massive bottoms, green hunter wellies or long leather boots, hair in a net with faded velvet hat, red broken veined cheeks and a voice like a foghorn!! If you were silly enough to fall off and let go of your reins you got shouted at to get up and catch your pony - then they'd check to see if you were ok. Would go out hacking for hours with no adult and nobody worried about it. Jumped with stirrups crossed, reins knotted and arms either folded or on our heads.

Used to jump the dog round homemade jumps in the garden and stuff the cat in my Sindy trailer and tow him around with the Sindy Range Rover.


OMG I don't have much to live for if all Riding Instructors turn out like this !!!! Ha Ha Ha
and as for stuffing cat into Sindy trailer that had me in tears ! LOL

Yes agree the famous horses and ledgends of Ginny, Lucinda and Ian etc David Brome, Harvey Smith, Ted Edgar etc all on TV ! Bliss.
I made hundreds of haynets out of finger knitting !

So simple !
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Oh God...where to start?

I had the obligatory green quilted waistcoat and jacket that was about as warm as a wafer...I then progressed to a Barbour waxed jacket that weighed a tonne when wet. String gloves- all year round. Joddy boots or long rubber boots -with a carrier bag lining in winter which eased removal- usually you had to dislocate an ankle to get them off.

I am surprised I didn't get hypothermia but spent a large proportion of my childhood with chilblains:eek:

String girths, rock-solid saddles with absolutely no padding for pony or rider.

Brown riding hat with elastic strap- flipped over the brim for additional coolness.

All ponies had a caveson noseband and mullen-mouth snaffle regardless of whether they pulled like a steam train or not.....you either stayed on- or fell off. No attempt was made to find bitting solutions or actually school your pony:o....you just rode around jumping drain covers on grass verges and whatever.:rolleyes:

I see my daughter in her thermal muckers, lovely climate-controlled jackets and saddles which actually fit and can be sat on for more than 15mins without your arse going numb......and think, bless her- she doesnt know she's born:D
 
Taffyhorse said:
and stuff the cat in my Sindy trailer and tow him around with the Sindy Range Rover. !!
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OMG!! poor cat!! :p:p:p

Its all flooding back, I would "gallop" the dog the length of the garden. Id stand behind him holiding his collar, throw his ball, and he'd run would about 10 feet with me on his back ( luckly he was a huge dalmation, and i was just little lol)

I tied the other dog to my bike to make a carraige...

I tied lead ropes to my handle bars of my biek to make reins for steering it - very bad idea!

Had a full course of home made jumps for the dog - and made him go over the real horse jumps too. Worked out to be good training as we went on to win a horse and hound showjumping competition! :p
 
Abina - they've probably changed a bit now ;-)

Alainax - I hasten to add the cat was a willing partner in all this. My Dad got quite a shock one day when he looked in the back of my Sindy trailer and the cat was sat inside (he travelled backwards :-), staring back at him :-)

Agree with the snaffle comment and the staying on or falling off bit - although my pony did have a Kimblewick (something else you don't see much nowadays) as I just couldn't stop otherwise, I could rarely stop then but hey ho...

I remember one day about 25 of us (average age about 11/12) were taking part in a pony week and we all had to walk around the edge of this giant stubble field in a line, trot along the bottom and canter collectedly (!) up the hill... Well, most were ok in the walk, more struggled in the trot and the canter was just carnage!! Most of us just got carted up the hill at speed to where said large bottomed, fog-horned voice instructor was screeching instructions. How she didn't get mowed down I'll never know! These days the instructor would probably get a major b*llocking but then it was us who got bawled at for not being able to control our ponies! Her bark was worse than her bite though and she was actually a very good instructor, just very old school - even for those days :-)
 
Seafarer said:
My sister and I used to dream of the day we would have our own pony (it never happened). While we waited, we designed show-jumping courses with the jumps made out of coke cans and beanpoles. We would jump these on our spacehopper. I was always Liz Edgar and my sister would be Caroline Bradley. If my grandad was about he'd pretend to be Dorian Williams and do the commentary :D
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omg, i could have written this lol, my friend and i did the same thing. the jumps were 2 logs for wings and an old 'stretcher' for holding up the washing line for the pole. I always had to be riding stroller. I used to talk to my spacehopper like it was a real horse. going into the jump it was 'steady boy, steady' lol

I used to watch hickstead and HOYS on the back of the sofa with the bridle from my old rocking horse stuck on the end. I rode every jump with them.

I had posters of all the greats on my wall, harvey smith, david broome, eddie macken, caroline bradley and graham fletcher (swoon) i used to kiss him every night at bedtime! I also had the schweppes plastic horses on my wall, one of each gait. they were so cool.

I eventually got a pair of jods from a friend of my mum who's daughter had outgrown them. I was so proud, i wore them for years til they were half way up my calf. Eventually the side zip gave way at a show (borrowed pony) exposing my flowery yellow pants! Oh the shame.

The ponies we eventually got to ride belonged to an old polish man who charged us £3 an hour to ride them. we spent hours there grooming them and faffing around. The saddles were leather but no tree, more like pony pads really. I remember seeing the new fancy orange saddles and really wanting one.

We had pull on over reach boots that took an age to put on, we bought them ourselves as we thought they looked flashy.
The ponies rarely were fed hard feed, only in the worst weather.
I loved those ponies, the wee black one that was 'mine' was charlie and was pretty ancient I think. He followed me like a wee dog.

ahh those were the days lol.
 
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brilliant threads everyone....


someone mentioned duvets under rugs?! i did that only 7 years ago :D :D :D

i didnt have ponies as a kid - did ride and help out but cant really remember anything significant :)
 
I'm 20 so don't remember most of the stuff being said but there is a few things I remember from the riding school!

- Everyone had MASSIVE grooming boxes full of of colour coordinated brushes and the coolest ones had those locks on that you turn the number to get it open.
- The whips with the hand on the end.
- Coloured glittery hoof oil which got spilt on the yard and stained the concrete for years.
- New zealand rugs.
- Duvets under rugs (though I saw this just last year lol?)
- Legging it to the office so we could chose the best horse from the list :D
- Getting the most colourful jods, chaps, hat covers, whips everything really!
- Climbing up the hay bales which were stacked about 200 ft high so we could look over the top and see down into the ponies stable! We could have just gone around the front of the stable :rolleyes:
- Searching through the boot box for hours to find a matching fitting pair to put on the lesson ponies xD oh and searching through the saddle cloths to find one big enough/nicest one haha.
 
jack9 said:
brilliant threads everyone....


someone mentioned duvets under rugs?! i did that only 7 years ago :D :D :D

i didnt have ponies as a kid - did ride and help out but cant really remember anything significant :)
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I still use duvets.
Nickel snaffles regardless and we never had to get 'the back man' or the 'tooth man'.
Riding to the farriers and leading three over Ilkey Moor (Bah t'at because it was the seventies and hats were useless).
20 feet long jump poles that were octagonal, about 8 inches thick and weighed a ton.
 
Those hat with the plastic/leather chin straps gave you a rotten tan line too!

I was lucky enough to have a thelwell duvet cover for xmas one year. My poor mum had to try and wash it and dry it on one day (no tumble dryer then) so it could go back on my bed. My mum also let me draw a 12h pony on my wall! Fortunately it was pretty good. Horses were all I could draw!

We had the plain new zealand rugs. I was so proud to get a proper stable rug too - a jute one, but gutted when my non-horsey mum turned him out in it as she felt sorry for him being in on a sunny day after the farrier had been and I was still at school. Of course the pony rolled in a muddy puddle, and my smart jute rug was ruined forever.

I quite prefered jute rugs with blankets under them. They were so smart, and I never had a mane rubbed away by a rug in those days!
 
I love these threads.
Haven't had a chance to have a proper read but will do after tea!
In the meantime, here's a couple of me circa 1982 (ish)
If you look closely, you will spot the hat harness with hideously itchy and impossible not to chew chin cup, cheapo rubber boots that you cut down to length with scissors, string girth, flat as a pancake and oiled to within an inch of it's life saddle, and the piece de resistance, (which I absolutely hated) a home made numnah.
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:)
 
Ooh Alliersv1 those photos could be my photos - even the red tinge to them. And no nosebands - cos I thought my pony looked more arab without one (then wondered why I couldn't stop it!), and rosettes with one tier! Got a bag of them in the shed from the 80s!
 
Honey08 said:
Ooh Alliersv1 those photos could be my photos - even the red tinge to them. And no nosebands - cos I thought my pony looked more arab without one (then wondered why I couldn't stop it!), and rosettes with one tier! Got a bag of them in the shed from the 80s!
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That's why I love these threads, It gives me an excuse to have a look at them again and reminisce. Pony was occasionally seen in a grackle too, but I do have pics of us hunting in a snaffle and a cavesson aswell.
Can't wait to have a proper look through this thread!
 
Suzie86 said:
??!?!?! :)
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Plaiting the front of straw beds - crunmbs I haven't done this for years and with all due respect the straw nowadays is probably not long enough !

basically after you had mucked out you 'made or set Fair' the bed and then starting from the edge pulled and twisted a 'rope' of straw this was then joined by another rope and passed underneath the first rope - the third rope was then added and it was then plaited under joining more ropes in rather like a spanish or Arab plait this made a 'prper edge to the bed and when done well prevented the bed from moving forwards. Could do it in minutes when younger.
 
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