Horse-mad childhood memories :)

[Tobiano]

Oh my goodness.... this is making me well up!

Does anyone remember the little poem in the JIll books that went something like this...

'There are more important things in life than horses
There are more important things in life than food.
Yet somehow when I'm eating or i'm riding
There's nothing else in life feels half so good'

I think of that often!

I was pony mad from as early as I can remember, and yes, like Rollin, only got my own at the age of 43! I wasnt even allowed riding lessons until I was 11.

Until then - I would dress up in my much older sisters' jodhs (the kind with the sticky out bits round the hips) and hacking jacket, and canter round the garden over a course of show jumps made of bean poles on bricks.

I made myself riding crops out of those thin canes for gardening, and I'd carefully wrap some wool around them as a covering, then plait the little loop to go round your wrist.

When we got a dog, I am sorry to say that she was lunged and show jumped mercilessly (thinking back, that may be why my parents finally allowed me to ride!)

My dad, bless him, used to do building work on the house with a kind of DIY scaffolding called an 'easy stage'. I persuaded him to put some of it up in the garden so I had a horse. It had a plank to sit on, and I tied a milk crate to look like a head - attached some reins, and spent hours and hours sitting up there 'riding' my 'horse'. Unfortunately one day I slipped and came down astride a thin metal pole - couldnt walk for a week!

My biggest treat was my mum taking me to the saddlery shop, where I would buy brushes, lead ropes and hoof oil .... good job I didnt know it would be 30 years before I had a use for them!

When I was finally allowed near a real live horse I remember the utter thrill of being asked to lead 11hh Strawberry round the school with his young rider. Any moment spent touching a horse was total bliss.

And yes, after that weekends and holidays were spent at the stables mucking out, tack cleaning, feeding, leading round for lessons.... and just occasionally, riding bareback from the field .... nirvana.

there has never, ever, been a feeling to compare with sitting astride the horse I loved, Gulliver, and realising 'I am actually riding this horse'. He has been dead 35 years but we will meet again one day.

 

[Dizzy socks]

Anyone read The Ponies Plot? I gave it to my cousin when I was about 15, then stole it back a decade later.

Me

I love Pullein Thompson, especially Josephine's, and Gillian Baxter is great!

I always wanted a Shelta/Shantih!

 

[SarahF]

Sadly, the dreaded Elf 'n safety has stopped all that children can't do 'jobs for rides' any more and are usually onlyalowed n the premises acccompanied by an adult - very sad.

That is sad. The pony mad little girls
Will have to resort to more desperate measures - God help the parents lol!

I did al the things mentioned here - my claim to fame? - my friend's aunt was a groom for David Broome and we went or a visit and I got to si on Sunsalve I was about 7.

I don't have a claim to fame. But the livery I "worked" at on Saturdays was were Alan Fazackerley was based - and he waa god father to John Whitakers daughter or something lol.
I always hoped I'd get to go up to Yorkshire to his yard - never did.
But bless Alan he did take me to a couple of shows - they were like the best days of my life back then

 

[undergroundoli]

Me

I love Pullein Thompson, especially Josephine's, and Gillian Baxter is great!

I always wanted a Shelta/Shantih!

The Pullein Tompsons were great. Did you have Joanna Cannan’s They bought her a pony? She was the Pullein Tompsons mother.

http://www.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/ is a great site for anyone wanting to some pony book nostalgia

 

[Dizzy socks]

The Pullein Tompsons were great. Did you have Joanna Cannan’s They bought her a pony? She was the Pullein Tompsons mother.

http://www.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/ is a great site for anyone wanting to some pony book nostalgia

No, not that one, but have a pony for Jean, and More Ponies for Jean!

Think have read an excerpt of that, and would like to own it!

Love that site, and sometimes post on the forum.

True pony book geek

 

[Noodles_3]

I love this thread! Just thought of a few more I used to do including 'ride' the arm of the chair with a cushion.... That was my horse! And I also used to lay cushions around the room piled up and I am painfully embarrassed to say run around on my hands and knees or hands and feet like bloody mogely off the jungle book or something and jump the jumps or crash through them and fall to the floor, pretending I'd fallen!

I must stress I was a young kid doing the above haha! What a weirdo! There was always countless horse games to play as a child. I love what great imaginations we all had as children too it's great.

 

[marooncat]

I was bought up on a farm and remember arguing with my dad that I could get a horse and it could just live in the shed with the cows. Also mum had her old saddle and I wanted to try and put it on one of the "house" cows as I was sure she would let me ride her!

Did not really get a chance to cycle to see horses as we are in the middle of nowhere but I think the best thing that happened to me was going to boarding school and getting lessons through the riding club there. I remember turning up to my first one wearing my mums old fashioned jodhpurs with the wide bits at the thighs. I felt I was the bee's knee's, but looking back fair play to the people at the stables for not bursting out laughing (this was mid '80's) and then when I got a riding crop from an aunt for christmas I was so chuffed, my first proper bit of riding stuff (still have that in my "box" at the yard)

 

[SarahF]

I think a crop was the first bit of proper horse kit I bought too. Purple & black from robinsons (my friends mum took us to a store once - you'd have thought I was in Willy Wonkas choc factory - I was that excited!)
I SO wanted to take one of the life size black plastic horse manaquins home with me too haha!

 

[Sologirl]

OK here's something funny - my equally horsemad sister and I would pretend that I was a racing TB and she was a jockey, I'd be bent over with my hands on the sofa and she'd ride on my back with a school tie in my mouth as a bit/reins - every time I'd be a different TB, sometimes a really good obedient one, sometimes a total t*t lol...I can still remember some of their names! Crowning Glory was the best one in the stud, and Arbiter was the naughty sod!

 

[SarahF]

Oh I think I just had a flashback as to the moment I fell in love with horses - I'd completely forgotten!
There were some really gentle shire horses in a field that backed onto my primary school playground. I'd go up to the railings and reach through to pick grass they could easily have grazed themselves - to feed them over the fence.
Stroking them all playtime and my hands being black with dirt from their never groomed coats. My favourite was called Treo I think
They seemed so big but so gentle and their muzzles so soft and lovely. And the smell - wooh nostalgia is lovely hey?!

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

Least I'm not the only one who jumped garden cane jumps when I was a child! I wwould also do a chase me Charlie by adding flower pots and challenge friends!

 

[windand rain]

Before I had a horse I would spend hours collecting imaginary ones all had names and personalities and were very real to me I used to jump garden canes and canter round the lawn etc. When I learned to ride the riding school was a 12 mile bus ride but a 4 miles walk as the crow flies so to save the bus fare I used to walk across the fields to save the bus fare so I could ride for two hours instead of one

 

[Mike007]

My horsemad childhood memorys came unexpectedly back recently. I dropped some hay into a new customers yard. The sheer energy and enthusiasm of the kids for moving hay astonished me. I havnt seen it for years ,many years ! They just loved everything to do with horses, the permanent member of staff was just as bad.It took me back nearly 50 years.

 

[Noodles_3]

OK here's something funny - my equally horsemad sister and I would pretend that I was a racing TB and she was a jockey, I'd be bent over with my hands on the sofa and she'd ride on my back with a school tie in my mouth as a bit/reins - every time I'd be a different TB, sometimes a really good obedient one, sometimes a total t*t lol...I can still remember some of their names! Crowning Glory was the best one in the stud, and Arbiter was the naughty sod!

Haha this is ace! I used to force my little cousin to act out black beauty with me and I used to always be ginger so I could 'buck' at him! Then the scene where they were pulling a carriage I'd tie a dressing gown rope round us both and we had to pretend haha! Then the bit like you say, rope/tie in mouth whilst they sit on your back. So glad we was all kids doing this else it could look and sound so wrong haha

 

[Dollysox]

Me

I love Pullein Thompson, especially Josephine's, and Gillian Baxter is great!

I always wanted a Shelta/Shantih!

OMG -I'd forgotten about Gillian Baxter. I used to have all her books. Must go and do some searching on-line ...

 

[SarahF]

Haha, eBay, amazon etc will wonder what's going on these days!

 

[undergroundoli]

Least I'm not the only one who jumped garden cane jumps when I was a child! I wwould also do a chase me Charlie by adding flower pots and challenge friends!

I did that, but was still doing it way past the age my friends had stopped so I had to be all the horses I got really high though, what with being 13 or so.

 

[SarahF]

Lol - I was "late to mature" too - when most of my friends discovered boys and evenings on the park - I still preferred the smell of horse's to the smell of cider and cigarettes thanks very much. They may have seen me as strange or immature or whatever, but I'm glad it was that way now

 

[Ibblebibble]

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......

oh yes, and i would actually pray and ask god to please let me win! i think my lack of winning was what made me question if god even existed !! i mean how could he not let me have a pony when i asked so nicely

i remember going dog walking with my grandad and he knew the owners of 2 ponies who lived up the hill where he walked the dog, stockings was one of the ponies and grandad used to pop me up on his back i remember him telling me that if a horse ran towards me i had to put my hands up in the air and shout loudly, think that was the extent of his horsey knowledge lol but it impressed me at the time!
I did all the poster collecting, toy horse collecting and making stables out of cereal boxes, reading any horsey book i could find and writing my own lol.
I did eventually persuade my parents to let me have riding lessons but then they stopped because they wanted me to have piano lessons

 

[exmoorponyprincess1]

I have just ordered 5 Jinny books from amazon and feel like a kid again waiting impatiently for them to arrive!!! Haha!

 

[Suechoccy]

No ponies in my childhood, spent mainly in a London suburb. Instead I lived subuponies through the Pullein Thompson sisters, Patricia Leitch, Gillian Baxter and Monica Edwards paperbacks borrowed from library or bought with pocket money.
I kept an imaginary pony at bottom of my bed and every morning I'd give him (thin air!) a full groom, then go and have my breakfast, then come back to bedroom, tack him up (tacking up thin air?!) and then ride him to school where I'd park him on the grassy quadrangle. Always had to just imagine untacking him in my head at school though, not go through the motions or else I'd have been labelled WEIRD by the other kids and teachers.
At every opportunity I'd go and stroke and pet the necks of the nearby tethered traveller ponies kept on various verges and "wasteground" and spend ages just watching them.
When I was old enough to go out cycling all day on my own, I would cycle to the countryside and stand, leaning on fences, wherever shiny ponies and huge horses grazed in fields, or people in jodphurs rode them in circles on sand or over showjumps at livery yards.

 

[buzzles]

What a brilliant thread - I used to do all those things from when I first started riding age 5 - brings back some lovely memories! When I was 11 we moved house to a place with timber stables, an orchard and paddock and all my dreams came true when I was allowed get a pony. So grateful to my parents as we were all a bit clueless but muddled along and I used to wake up every morning and see my beloved pony Cal from my bedroom window. Used to go hacking for miles, play cowboys and indians, pony club, won championships, working hunter, xc, hunting, I worshipped him and he was my best friend for 20 years until I had to make the horrible decision to PTS 2 years ago. I found out later my grandmother gave my parents the money to buy him but she had passed away by then and I never got to thank her for giving me such a wonderful childhood. Now have a yard full of wonderful horses and still love playing 'ponies' every day. I think how empty my life would have been without them
I think this video sums up my childhood quite well- I would have been the one Jennifer Saunders plays!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWd_r2sOPhs

 

[lhotse]

Probably my most vivid memory is of trekking up on Exmoor above Minehead when I was about 6 with my mum. I can still remember riding along the coastal path as if it were yesterday. We were on holiday at Butlins and mum wanted to go riding so we joined an organised two hour trek across the moors. I remember someone falling off and mum putting them back on again and mum wanted a canter so gave my leadrein to a guy so she could hang back and catch us up.
I can still see the yellow gorse against the blue sea. I will have to take my mare there one day...

 

[Janesomerset]

Probably my most vivid memory is of trekking up on Exmoor above Minehead when I was about 6 with my mum. I can still remember riding along the coastal path as if it were yesterday. We were on holiday at Butlins and mum wanted to go riding so we joined an organised two hour trek across the moors. I remember someone falling off and mum putting them back on again and mum wanted a canter so gave my leadrein to a guy so she could hang back and catch us up.
I can still see the yellow gorse against the blue sea. I will have to take my mare there one day...

lhotse, did you go from Colin Fisher's riding stables on North Hill? I used to ride from there, but Colin has retired now and just has a few horses as liveries. He had some lovely trekking horses. My friend owns one of them now. When I was little, I used to ride from the stables in North Road, Minehead, now converted to houses.
Still plenty of yellow gorse and blue sea (on a good day!) but a lot of the tracks are now very stony.

 

[lhotse]

The stables were on a hill above Minehead, I can still remember driving up the road. Might well be the same place!
Should add that this was 36 years ago!!

 

[Magicmillbrook]

Imaginary hedge jumping in the car - Me too. I know just about every equestrian property/field on my work district. My sister and I used to live on our family farm, my Grandmother paid for us to have riding lessons at the village riding school with the promise of our own pony when we were older. Sadly the farm was sold, riding lessons were no more and certainly no pony.

We moved to a small holding that had a small paddock, The local horse dealer would use it from time to time and we were allowed to handle the foals and sometimes he would get something in that was 'broken and we would get to ride it. Often we would ride with an old folded up blanket and rope halter, and suffice to say we had many many accidents. We were friends with the pony owners in the adjoining villages and would do anything to get a ride. I recall doing the minimus at a gymkhana on my friends pony Suzy. A smart but scatty welsh arab (as was the fashion in the 1980's), I had only tried jumping the day before - somehow I got round and got a clear round rosette.

My sisters first real accident was a triple fracture at her elbow from missing a stride at the water jump (paddling pool) on her broom show jumper!

 

[Janesomerset]

The stables were on a hill above Minehead, I can still remember driving up the road. Might well be the same place!
Should add that this was 36 years ago!!

I should think that was Colin's place! You would drive past the War Memorial and St.Michael's Church and then Colin's yard is on the left. I have so many happy memories of riding out from there, both before and after we moved to Minehead.

 

[marmalade76]

I've been horse mad for as long as I can remember, I had endless toy horses and when not playing with these I would be pretending to be a horse (and still wanted to canter rather than run when I reached my teens, but didn't dare as didn't want to appear silly and childish!) I also made jumps in the garden, imagined galloping along the fields alongside the roads when in the car. Any proper horsy item was treasured, hat (which I wore on my bike), stick and the bridle my aunt gave me. Loved the Jill books, P-T sisters and kM Peyton books, read Ponies Plot too but was never that keen on Jinny, she never went to any gymkhanas!

I was lucky enough to have a pony and use of others from a tiny tot to the age of five when the pony had to go 'cause my parents split up and despite coming from a fairly horsey family I didn't have one for quite a few years. I visited local fields full of ponies, cadged rides at horse shows and if I was really lucky I'd get a ride on one of my stepmother's horses. When 11 my sister and I went to live with our aunt and then we had regular lessons at riding school. At 13 I was allowed to ride my aunt's pony (she was a bit of a loon) and also helped out at a yard at weekends and hols where I would get lessons and the odd lift to a PC rally.

When I was 15 I finally loaned a pony to myself. Would you believe, I met a woman whoes children went to the same school as me, all three had ponies but all had lost interest, isn't it always the way? Anyway, I loaned one pony and had the use of the other too as well! They came with all the gear too, couldn't believe my luck! The other two have since died but the one I loaned is still going at 34.

I agree that there doesn't seem to be that many pony mad kids about theses days, mine certainly aren't, they have a pony, like horses and like riding but they're not like I was and don't do all the things I did. It does sadden me when I read posts on the net along the lines of 'some kid has been hanging around and had the cheek to ask for a ride!' usual reply seems to be 'my horse is mad, it would kill anone but me!' and I often reply that it wouldn't bother me at all as I know what it's like to be pony mad and ponyless and providing an interested child was well behaved, respectful and did as they were told they'd be welcome to join me at the yard. My son's best friend's older sister is pony mad and gets a riding lesson once a fortnight. She's come for rides with us and joined us at gymkhanas, she's a real pleasure and quite handy but the (non horsey) parents are reluctant to let her join us often as they feel they are taking advantage, gave me a bottle of wine last time I took her out for the day...:s

 

[undergroundoli]

I agree that there doesn't seem to be that many pony mad kids about theses days, mine certainly aren't, they have a pony, like horses and like riding but they're not like I was and don't do all the things I did. It does sadden me when I read posts on the net along the lines of 'some kid has been hanging around and had the cheek to ask for a ride!' usual reply seems to be 'my horse is mad, it would kill anone but me!' and I often reply that it wouldn't bother me at all as I know what it's like to be pony mad and ponyless and providing an interested child was well behaved, respectful and did as they were told they'd be welcome to join me at the yard. My son's best friend's older sister is pony mad and gets a riding lesson once a fortnight. She's come for rides with us and joined us at gymkhanas, she's a real pleasure and quite handy but the (non horsey) parents are reluctant to let her join us often as they feel they are taking advantage, gave me a bottle of wine last time I took her out for the day...:s

It saddens me to. I lived near a common with ponies on and grooming and stroking them gave me so much pleasure. Wasn't ever brave enough to ask anyone for a ride although I longed to ride so much. I understand peoples horses not being suitable and people needing to cover themselves, but the poor ponyless children. Fight the non horsey parents reluctance.

I don't think I could have been as horsey if I had a pony. I wouldn't have needed to act out my longing so much and I'd have been more aware how unrealistic my fantasys were.

 

[Magicmillbrook]

I agree that there doesn't seem to be that many pony mad kids about theses days, mine certainly aren't, they have a pony, like horses and like riding but they're not like I was and don't do all the things I did. It does sadden me when I read posts on the net along the lines of 'some kid has been hanging around and had the cheek to ask for a ride!' usual reply seems to be 'my horse is mad, it would kill anone but me!' and I often reply that it wouldn't bother me at all as I know what it's like to be pony mad and ponyless and providing an interested child was well behaved, respectful and did as they were told they'd be welcome to join me at the yard. My son's best friend's older sister is pony mad and gets a riding lesson once a fortnight. She's come for rides with us and joined us at gymkhanas, she's a real pleasure and quite handy but the (non horsey) parents are reluctant to let her join us often as they feel they are taking advantage, gave me a bottle of wine last time I took her out for the day...:s

That's realy nice of you - I think people forget the yearning to be close to horses, even if I get old and creaky and cannot ride anymore I will have some rescue ponies, I couldn't imagine a horseless life.