Heads and posts

[Snowfilly]

Having a ‘do you remember the good old days’ chat with a friend, who claimed she’d never heard of or seen heads and posts played at a gymkhana.

Regional quirk or did my friend miss out on the best of the games?

(It’s played the same as chase me Charlie, except there’s something balanced on the wing of the jump and you have to knock it off with your crop as you jump - the local show used a milk bottle filled with sand)

 

[Gloi]

Never seen that here

 

[Mrs B]

Nope - new one to me!
What region are you from, SF?

 

[Snowfilly]

Nope - new one to me!
What region are you from, SF?

Cornwall

 

[Prancerpoos]

Not seen by me in Sussex.

 

[MurphysMinder]

No not heard of that. Though it was the 60s when I was doing gymkhanas.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Never heard of it, Surrey.
Was gymkhana-ing myself late 60s through to 80s and then running PPC teams till early 90s.

 

[blitznbobs]

Never heard of it Cheshire

 

[Snowfilly]

In this case, I’m gonna blame some of the local hunt committees as they seemed to organise most of the local shows here in the early / mid nineties!

It really was a lot of fun, as it rewarded accurate jumping by the wing and getting your turn into the fence right rather than just going over huge fences like Chase me Charlie.

I wonder what other things were more regional than you’d think?

 

[Mrs B]

Our version of Chase me Charlie (Leicestershire, 1970s) was also won by accuracy - a long row of barrels, one taken out each round ... penultimate round was one barrel on its side ... and last round was that barrel, but upright. No one had heard of skinnies then ...
If it was a tie at the end, well so be it!

 

[Snowfilly]

Our version of Chase me Charlie (Leicestershire, 1970s) was also won by accuracy - a long row of barrels, one taken out each round ... penultimate round was one barrel on its side ... and last round was that barrel, but upright. No one had heard of skinnies then ...
If it was a tie at the end, well so be it!

Now that one we called elimination cans! Normally beer barrels, and it was considered a vital part of the game to shout and holler at other people’s ponies as they made the turn into the final barrel.

Chase me Charlie went up like a puissance

 

[MurphysMinder]

Our version of Chase me Charlie (Leicestershire, 1970s) was also won by accuracy - a long row of barrels, one taken out each round ... penultimate round was one barrel on its side ... and last round was that barrel, but upright. No one had heard of skinnies then ...
If it was a tie at the end, well so be it!

We had that , known as barrel jumping somewhat obviously

 

[SussexbytheXmasTree]

Our version of Chase me Charlie (Leicestershire, 1970s) was also won by accuracy - a long row of barrels, one taken out each round ... penultimate round was one barrel on its side ... and last round was that barrel, but upright. No one had heard of skinnies then ...
If it was a tie at the end, well so be it!

At pony club we did “bucket elimination” which was basically the same thing except using buckets.

 

[Mrs B]

Now that one we called elimination cans! Normally beer barrels, and it was considered a vital part of the game to shout and holler at other people’s ponies as they made the turn into the final barrel.

Chase me Charlie went up like a puissance

Nope - not where I came from!

 

[Flowerofthefen]

Nope, never heard of it!!

 

[blitznbobs]

Now that one we called elimination cans! Normally beer barrels, and it was considered a vital part of the game to shout and holler at other people’s ponies as they made the turn into the final barrel.

Chase me Charlie went up like a puissance

That is 7 barrel jumping in our neck of the woods (not a clever name) we were really competitive and I practiced for hours doing one barrel on its side and then one of those plastic jump blocks turned narrowest side on

 

[GoldenWillow]

We never had that but we had similar in that you had to pick a jumper off a wing as you jumped although I have a feeling that was very local to just a few places. We also had the elimination cans or barrels, the same set of red and white barrels were dragged out all the time which got progressively more battered each year. Chase me Charlie was at every show, often to be done bareback.

North West.

 

[Lucky Snowball]

Never had the sand on the jump wing in my part of Devon but we did barrel jumping and chase me Charlie