Horse-mad childhood memories :)

[el_Snowflakes]

Haha these bring back memories! My friend and I used to 'canter' about the garden. Make 'show jumps' out of garden furniture & bits of wood for the dogs.....& us! Did the whole riding trot on a push bike thing as I can imagine many other did too! .......my friends dad even mentioned it in part of his wedding speech at her wedding. I nearly died! Lol

 

[Meems]

Anybody old enough to remember the WH Smith "Win a pony" competition? They used to run it every year - the winner got a pony and funds to keep it for a year. I used to do it religiously and was always bitterly disappointed that I didn't win. It was only when I was well into adulthood that I wondered whether my non-horsey mother had actually ever posted my entries......

I used to want it soooooooooo bad that I actually felt physically sick when I posted my entry into the postbox.

I also wrote to 'Jim'll Fix It' wanting to meet and ride with David Broome. I told a couple of my horsey friends at school and they then copied me and wrote asking for exactly the same thing. I was so upset that they might get chosen instead of me as it was MY IDEA. As it happened none of us got chosen (my mum who used to work at the BBC said they just used to throw out sackfuls of unopened letters) maybe, looking back, we all had a lucky escape :eek3::eek3: (from Jimmy Saville not David Broome!!)

 

[Janesomerset]

My pony-mad friend and I used to walk miles just so we could go and see some ponies in a field (not many ponies in Birmingham!) and we just used to watch them and think what we would do if they were ours. At school, we used to have pretend showjumpers and we used to jump over the big wooden benches in the playground...and boy, was it painful if we misjudged our jumps. Then an angel (aka a chemistry teacher) who had her own horse at a riding stables on the outskirts of the city set up a school RIDING CLUB! We never missed a meeting! We used to get discounted rides at the stables if we helped out. Such happy days...thank you, Miss Phillips! I got my own horse when I was 31.

 

[Janesomerset]

P.S. We also entered the WHSmith Win a Pony competition every year!

 

[AliceCrail]

I think it is harder for kids to help out at yards now, I know as a parent there is no way I would let my kids (ok, they are only 6 and 3!) disappear off for the day with a bike and some sandwiches to be used as labour at some slightly questionable horsey establishment!
10 years ago I worked at a riding school and we had young helpers, there were only 2 or 3 that actually wanted to be there and jumped at the chance for any horsey job, the others were dumped there as childcare!
I was lucky enough to have a horsey family, but still had H&P mag every week, and loved the PC section of the H&H, I had julip horses and used to make them a mash from ready brek
I have recently re-acquired all the horsey books I had as a child, much to my husband's delight!

 

[SarahF]

Ooh I had some flocked model horses too - cant remember the kind but I loved their little saddles and bridles!

I got a lovely grey dun stallion first and he was my fave - they had feather manes I think? Remember He was delivered just before I left for school so I smuggled him out in my school bag to open on the bus!
And an appy too - oh thanks for reminding me of those I'm off to eBay...

(I've spent most of the morning adding Jinny books to my Amazon basket - 0.01p each and a couple £ postage means if I get them from the same seller I can prob get them all for less than a fiver lol!)

 

[Equi]

I used to play horse races about the shcool yard, i always had to win of course. I had a set of "fences" (aka some branches pulled of the trees) to do xc with. Made the poor dog jump them constantly lol

Then when i was 11 i moved to my new house which had at the time 26 stables and a tonne of left over rugs and race saddles. So my friend and i spent every saturday mucking them out and cleaning the tack. The bloody seller then came and took all the saddles and rugs that we had cleaned and my dad knocked down the stables! :'(

 

[EffyCorsten]

I don't even remember how I became obsessed with horses. My family weren't horsey and I was 4. Apparently I badgered my mum until she let us have lessons so we walked to the stables every Saturday morning for a while but in reality we were just led around the lanes for half hour (me and my brother who was 7) this stopped after a while my mum couldn't afford it all all she scraped the money together for us as it was and my dad didn't pay child support. So after that I was even more hooked!
I'd pretend the end of my bed was My pony and sit on it all day with my mum's handbag as reins. I also held it like reins on every car journey!
My mum managed to buy a rocking horse one Christmas! I would ride it in front of the tv watching the trooping of the colour
My mum's friend had a horse and would give mum all her rosettes she won and all her horse and hound mags bless her!
I drew pictures of horses every day and collected books and videos wrote stories of how I'd get a pony for Christmas and would tell people I had a pony! Heavens knows why I lied but I was only 6 HeHe it was tricky though because everyone at school believed me. I can't remember what happened there but they were still my friends when they knew it wasn't true bless them!
I'd then go on pony for a day trips and went riding every time I visited my dad and got real lessons.

I stopped being so outwardly obsessed when I was a teenager in an effort to be cool

Met my ex boyfriend and 18 and thought he was amazing until he told me I was never aloud a dog let alone a horse! So after 3years I had to end it because of that!
Then met my husband who shared my love of animals and even though he'd never sat on a horse himself he got me my first horse!

Sorry that's a bit of a life story actually.

Oh and I had a pretty substantial herd of plastic horses and still have some of them and the rosettes.

 

[EffyCorsten]

I used to play horse races about the shcool yard, i always had to win of course. I had a set of "fences" (aka some branches pulled of the trees) to do xc with. Made the poor dog jump them constantly lol

Then when i was 11 i moved to my new house which had at the time 26 stables and a tonne of left over rugs and race saddles. So my friend and i spent every saturday mucking them out and cleaning the tack. The bloody seller then came and took all the saddles and rugs that we had cleaned and my dad knocked down the stables! :'(

Oh no! I'd have divorced my dad what happened after that?

 

[Spilletta]

...and my dad knocked down the stables! :'(

Oh no - that is so sad. Life's not fair, sometimes. If you had been characters in a typical pony book, you'd have been able to save the stables.

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

I would set up "jumps" with garden canes and flower pots and jump them

Riding my rocking horse while the racing or showjumping was on and pretending I was famous rider or jockey

My model horses went traveling in their box when visiting family- would also regularly play riding schools with them. I also refused to have dolls unless they rode horses!

Loved Sheltie the Shetland pony books, chatterhappy ponies and if wishes were horses on the tv

Horse and pony magazine and plastering my bedroom walls with posters

Also didn't have my own pony but had lessons and did own a pony days, gymkhanas at the riding school. Also helped out there every Saturday and Mondays and Friday's after school, all day in school holidays

 

[Tilo]

OP, I also had that same Arab poster, on my bedroom door!!.

Didn't get 1st pony til 14, so many ponyless years spent without, but made up for it in many ways!

Weekend riding school helper from 8am til 5pm, after a year of free labour, got a free 20 minute lesson on 'Rolo'. I didn't mind!

Would do anything I could to un-tack the pony after lesson. Had a sneaky polo mint in my waxed jacket pocket to give it and a little brush to groom it!. I labelled sandwich bags with each RS pony's name on it, and collected hair from said brush and put it in each pony's bag!.

Found some old stirrup leathers and irons from a carboot and looped them over my piano stool and pretended I was on my galloping steed!. I cherished that tub of saddle soap that Dad bought me from Mole Avon to clean the leathers with!

Pinned up notices at Mole Avon asking for horses to ride in return for duties. Got all manner of offers, would sit on anything, needless to say, many of them didn't want me back!! But they could see I was young and keen, but needed a little more experience!

Using my Grandma's walking stick as a hobby horse, charging around the house to the theme of Black Beauty!

Happy to cycle miles up the Devonshire hills for a ride on a pony! Saddle over the handlebars of my creaky old racer. A 10pence in my pocket to phone my Dad to come and collect me if I got in trouble!.

Had my own 'stables' in my bedroom. Had a Sindy horse (Beauty) it's foal (Star) a china plough horse (Diamond) and a little Julip pony (Sesame). They had stables made of shoe boxes with real straw stolen from my Sister's rabbit hutches!. I made tack from them using an old handbag, and rugs from Mum's old woollen blankets. I had weekly gymkhanas and Mum would have to explain to our neighbour what the noises were as I thundered my horses around my bedroom floor during the 'jump off'!.
I made rosettes out of paper and felt tip pens to colour them, and awarded my string of horses their prizes and pinned them onto my wall above my Downlands Cancara poster from H+P mag!.

When I got my 1st pony, he damaged his New Zealand rug in the field, I promptly stole my Dad's braces for holding up his trousers, and made my own surcingle! Dad has never forgotten this!

 

[SarahF]

This is the appy version of the model horses I had - anyone know he make?

 

[NellRosk]

Tilo has just reminded me of Julip horses!!! Would spend hours with mine and they even had a posh horsebox that we'd go to competitions in

 

[EffyCorsten]

This is the appy version of the model horses I had - anyone know he make?

Mine was bay! I can't remember the make though I'm root around ebay.

 

[EffyCorsten]

Wow who had these?http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/290488762014?nav=SEARCH

 

[SarahF]

Mine was bay! I can't remember the make though I'm root around ebay.

Yeh I had a bay too, and a gorgeous grey dun. I'm on eBay now, only found the appy so far.
(Hubby will actually kill me if I spend money on a toy horse hahaha!!)

 

[EffyCorsten]

Yeh I had a bay too, and a gorgeous grey dun. I'm on eBay now, only found the appy so far.
(Hubby will actually kill me if I spend money on a toy horse hahaha!!)

Haha yeah same! I'm trying to find the plastic ones with the real faux mane and tail. They would always get scruffy and ruined and wouldn't brush smooth.

 

[x-di-x]

Getting my own riding hat for the first time, a Charles Owen jockey skull. I refused to take it off and wore it home in the car and everytime I went out

My grooming box being decorated in stickers from h&p

Writing to jim'll fix it for a day with a SJer (I, for love nor money, can't remember which one!)

As soon as we got a phone (I was 4 and a half). Using the yellow pages and phoning stables to ask about costs for lessons, despite having no transport and no money!

The 'proper' Robinsons catalogue not this small version you get these days.

Walls covered in pony pictures, school books covered with pony posters. The back of the sofa for practising rising trot (with my hat on!) buying a lead rope and learning how to wind it..... For when I got my own horse.

Hours and hours spent reading library books on horse care.

Saddle club, Heronsway and Jinny books

 

[EffyCorsten]

I remember sneaking into the hall to phone the rspca rehoming line after I saw a pony on the end of animal rescue. I was about 6 and from what I remember the woman on the phone went along with it to not upset me. My Aunty was babysitting at the time I have no idea what happened really.

I also spent hours pawing through the yellow pages to find livery yards for my none existent pony.

 

[Cowpony]

Having to call out to the teacher the subject of a project we each proposed to do, being absolutely amazed that none of my friends had said "Horses and ponies". Saying it myself and then being ostracised by my "friends" because they had apparently come to an agreement that everybody wanted that topic so nobody would claim it. They sat on a different table from me, but somehow I was supposed to know this! Some bits of my horsey childhood I definitely don't miss. I got the last laugh though because shortly afterwards we moved to a village with riding stables and I learned to ride. None of my friends at the previous school ever did.

 

[millikins]

Anybody old enough to remember the WH Smith "Win a pony" competition? They used to run it every year - the winner got a pony and funds to keep it for a year. I used to do it religiously and was always bitterly disappointed that I didn't win. It was only when I was well into adulthood that I wondered whether my non-horsey mother had actually ever posted my entries......

I know my mum did because I won a runner up prize! It was a 10 shilling book voucher and I bought 4 paperbacks, one of which was "Thunderhead" I think.

 

[Cowpony]

I know my mum did because I won a runner up prize! It was a 10 shilling book voucher and I bought 4 paperbacks, one of which was "Thunderhead" I think.

Ooh, how exciting! I didn't win so often I started to think it was a scam and nobody ever won anything.... It's good to know there really were some winners out there.

 

[Ceriann]

My sister and i spending various holidays "helping" our local farrier and being so chuffed when every now and again he'd get a quiet one and we could sit on them (H&S just wouldnt allow it these days). Persuading my mum to let us have lessons and loving every minute of our half day Saturdays spent at the riding school, even if having my pony (Sam) tank with me every time the hacking group cantered was a bit scary (especially as my hat was slightly too big and would slip over my eyes so seeing was sometimes a problem). Failing to persuade my mum to let me have a pony (even on loan from the riding school over winter) and being heartbroken every time a tried and failed!

 

[SarahF]

Walls covered in pony pictures, school books covered with pony posters.

Haha I backed my school books with them too. The subjects I preferred got the prettier posters lol!

 

[mytwofriends]

Riding brooms with skipping rope bridles. My best friend and I had a whole riding school worth of them, some more desirable to ride than others! Also driving our dads nuts by jumping every well tended shrub in sight, sometimes "refusing" and messing up the ground in front. We even jumped her hefty cast iron garden seat, although I cringe at the health and safely aspect of that now! And of course the tried and tested "jumping shadows across the road" whilst being a passenger in the car, even counting out strides in between.

Hauling on the reins when a plane landed and was slowing on the runway was a fun one to play with my daughters when they were young too ....... (and saying good boy when it eventually stopped).

 

[SarahF]

Haha - when I cantered up our street I used to count strides too between the jumps (dark/newer bits of Tarmac)

This thread is bringing back long forgotten memories

 

[exmoorponyprincess1]

I was telling my husband about this thread and he said that I needed to admit to everyone that I still lean into a jumping position for every jump when watching any show jumping/cross country on the tv!! I'm sure I am not the only one???!!!!

 

[SarahF]

I was telling my husband about this thread and he said that I needed to admit to everyone that I still lean into a jumping position for every jump when watching any show jumping/cross country on the tv!! I'm sure I am not the only one???!!!!

Nope I don't. I still practice rising trot on the back of my sofa though.
Just kidding!

 

[EffyCorsten]

A bit embarrassing but I clench my er seat.. when watching particularly tence jump offs.