lets have your nostalgic 'i remember whens', just for fun

I remember those weird little plastic chin holders on riding hats and always having a sweaty chin!

And spending all day grooming the ponies in the riding school - no supervision, no health and safety, we used to just hop on their backs and sit there when no one was looking. We'd polish them all up perfectly, oil their hooves etc.

Literally spending hours sat on the horse shaped tree in my grandpa's back garden, pretending to ride, and watching the neighbours' girls jumping their ponies in the field behind.

oh - and If Wishes Were Horses
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OMG

Also remmeber jumping bareback and cantering on verges of a roads, guess at the time did not think it so mich of an issue
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, still think we should learn to ride bare back.

Lets get back to basics, we would save a fourtune
 
Those horrible green quilted waistcoats. I had some yellow plaited reins!
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They matched my yellow string girth.
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I still have westropp overreach boots.
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I like the design tbh.

I think I may even have some sweat rugs tucked away and a jute rug or two! I think I have a couple of NZs too. Just as spares. Dont know why I keep them really!
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I never use them.
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But they may come in handy one day!
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- String girths and coloured string reins
- Hats were only for the winter or for shows. We never wore them in the summer.
- Jodhpurs were definitely just for shows, before the invention of Lycra they were just too uncomfortable!
- Shows a pound for the day including a ridden class, clear round, show jumping round and always 3 gymkhana games at the end.
- Nobody got their ponies clipped
- Nobody had rugs!
- Kids went for lovely long hacks for hours on end - no health and safety or risk assessments!
 
I remember when an hours lesson cost 75p

a set of shoes was £4

I also use to ride bare back for miles
and did'nt think anything of hacking 8miles to my house and 8 miles back again
some time i'd leave horse in garden for night and hack home next day.

And I also remember the string girths and the horrible jodspurs like the mounties wore

Those were the day's
 
Hours spent working the hand turned chaff cutter, at least the machine that crushed t he oats and barley was electric! These were fed with sugar beet in the winter and boiled barley and linseed if your pony needed a little bit extra!

String girths, hacking to pc rallies and shows with brushes and sandwiches in a saddle bag.

Being out all day and no one worrying about where you were as you just made sure you got home before it was dark.
 
oh those plastic chin cups!
Sugar beet pellets or shreds - no speedi beet!
saddle fitting - it's become a minefield! I was only out the horsey world for 4 years and now - balance or wow or cair or..... I remember your biggest decision being colour or what knee rolls!
still have my wax jacket
hacking to Rivington barn, grabbing a stranger to hold my pony while we went in to get a cake
hacking for hours on end - including a memorable one hackin back in a bra - dusk came, and I had a white bra on, everything else was black
riding back from a rally with Mum following in the car so we could use her headlights to see...
 
Hacking everywhere, all day and everyday and riding at 5.30 in the morning on hot summer days before the traffic was about.

Boiling barley in my mum's best saucepan and stinking the house out.

Sandon Saddlery, a den of a place that was always stuffed full of everything and run by a couple of ruddy old ladies!
 
OMG Westropp overreach boots! The other girls at pony club would swap petals and have multi-coloured ones but my friend and I thought that was soooooo tacky, we had classic single coloured ones - white for me to match his white socks and she had black as her horse was chestnut with no white and nothing else looked good on him! (didn't stop the other girls with chestnuts having red, blue and green though!) We thought we were so grown up ans sophisticated to stick to one colour each!

I remember being desperate for hac-tac denim jods but my mum wouldn't buy them for me until I stopped growing as they were so expensive and by the time I stopped growing I was buying my own stuff and couldn't justify the cost . I finally treated myself to a pair last year (only 20 years later) and they're the most uncomfortable things I've ever bought
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. I'm sill not over the disappointment.
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Getting stale bread rolls from the bakers to supplement the pony nuts and bran (dry if the pony was "sloppy", wet if the pony a bit "pebbly")
The only rug was the one they grew, or rolled in.
String sweat rugs (saw one, in use, at Purston!)
Only being allowed to brush the mud off the bits where the leather went.
Riding all day, with only 10pence for an emergency call.
Galloping along the beach, jumping the groynes.
Riding along the M20 when it was finished,but before it was opened (!)
Riding home 5 miles so the farrier could shoe in the garage (cold shod)
Hacking to shows with everything from sarnies to haynet on the pony. If I couldn't carry it,it didn't come.
Cattle trucks doing a round robin to collect ponies for long distance shows - cram as many in as possible,no partitions,and kids in the luton,with the tack,behind the gates!
String girths, then (luxury) lampwick girths.
Ruby Ferguson, Pullein Thompsons and Mary O'Hara (remember Flicka?)
Could go on and on!
 
I remember those funny chin straps too - I was looking at an old picture a couple of days ago and thought how ugly they were!
- Riding on the hill in the snow on my pony in jute rug and a headcollar and old frayed rope (what was I thinking!)
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- Trying to fold blankets to secure them with a surcingle(usually unsuccessfully)
- Full livery £16 a week
- Gorgeous smell of boiled barley
- A mud ring for a school
- Eating homemade sandwiches in the haybarn
- Nobody had lessons once they had their own horse or pony unless through Pony Club
- We all shared a hired box to go to shows as hardly anyone had their own transport
- Had to use a payphone to call parents to pick me up from the yard
- A parka coat in blue or green with fake fur trimmed hood was THE top fashion item with obligatory legwarmers worn over your jodphurs
- My first quilted rug by Lavenham - I still have it
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Catching the country bus to get to my pony
string girths
jute rugs
canvas rugs
hats that didn' fit
riding bareback
staying all day with my pony
hacking to gymkhanas
second hand jods and boots
ponies were not fed other than apples picked off trees
ponies were always too fat
no dentists
no back people
masses of fun fun fun
 
Nobody had their own transport. We hacked everywhere or about once a year hired a big lorry to go to a big hunter trials that were too far away to hack to. Even the really rich family of 3 kids only had a trailer, so still had to hack most places if they were all going.

I also remember when polypads were space age technology!
 
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I'm sure a half hour lesson was about 10s. I used to walk to school and save the 3d bus fare each way, and have a lesson every 3-4 weeks - my parents refused to part with any cash for my mad horsey obsession. My hat was a cork lined one - paid for with Christmas money, and the thin chin elastic certainly wouldn't have held it on if I fell off. I saved up and bought new boots and jodhs (before that I wore school shoes and jeans but they were cheap tescos jeans that were too big and pinched), and I bought a tweed jacket from a jumble sale and altered it to fit.

I used to walk miles to the stables too.

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God!! My first riding lessons were 5 shillings and 1/2 hour was half a crown.
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Your other comments re tweed jacket reminded me of similar enterprises tried
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hahaha,

I remember getting the bus every day after school to see the ponies, it was an hour each way.
String girths, \
rubber reins being very cool
riding bareback lots (i still do, I ride most of my dealing horses bareback and everyone thinks I'm nuts)
making mini cross country jumps all round our fields, then charging round them and all swapping ponies half way
hacking down a roads and cantering on the verges
mass yard hacks to shows (to do the bareback jumping no less!)
riding up the shops and parking the ponies outside
no one bought expensive ponies, we got whatever arrived on the yard, TB types were thought of as "posh"
string sweat rugs (i still have some of these lurking somewhere)
being terrified of the resident shetland
getting to ride my aunts show cob was the biggest treat EVER!
 
reading this really made me smile have done most of the things listed the one i remember best bareback jumping as i was very good at it just makes me wonder where has all the fun gone
 
Ah Tic Tac sandon saddlery, those old girls were a fountain of knowledge.
Working all day at a riding school to get a free lesson
Doing 3 paper rounds a week to buy horsey stuff
Bare back riding everywhere
Hacking to all the local shows
Locals shows, were all about fun not serious competitive
1 nz rug, done all winter
 
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Oh I did the bus thing as well, carrying all the tack - and how many times did the bus driver say - have you lost the horse?!
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EVERY TIME!

i remember getting on a crowded bus after a day with the horses and despite the bus being over-ful no-one would sit near me, i must have STANK!!
 
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makes me wonder where has all the fun gone

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WHO KNOWS, ITS ALL SO SERIOUS THESE DAYS

sorry capslock...

sayingto a friend a while back cant remember the last time i just went on a hack for the sake of it, if im hacking these days im fittening or exercising,theres a purpose, not just having fun
 
going on a 'pony week' every summer at the riding school - £25.

One year we found a place that hired out ponies for £10 a week and did that instead; no supervision/lessons/health & safety, just a pony to use as you liked.

jumps made of painted oil barrels and every stables (even riding schools) had a bunch of nicked road cones for jumps and bending races!

hacking to local shows, which were just for fun, nothing serious. No one had posh ponies/kit or lorries

spending all day out on a hack with a picnic in carrier bags tied to the saddle D rings.

even young kids hacking out unaccompanied (when I was 9 years old my riding school stopped giving lessons and just hired out by the hour. On the pony and off you'd go by yourself! as a teenager being at the stables all day weekends and school holidays.
 
horse and pony magazine with the photo story and the free stickers you would stick on your grooming kit, everyone wore a jumper with your riding schools name and logo on it, EVERYONE wore jodphur clips!!!! magic gloves were the cool thing to have and if you had a lesson at the end of the day you got to ride the pony bare back back to the field
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One of my earliest horsey memories is eating lunch on top of the muck heap to keep warm
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Making jumps trying to be like Jill
Wanting a grey horse like Milton
Horse and Pony was a good magazine
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Working at the stables and leading rides out - aged 11....
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Picnic rides
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Being madly in love with Carl Hester and Guy Goosen
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Going to shows in riding clothes even if I wasn't riding in case I was offered a ride and dreaming of being discovered and given a ride at Badminton
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I think I read way too many Pullen-Thompson books
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Riding/jumping bareback in a headcollar with no hat and being regularly bucked off (never broke any bones!)
Sting girths.
Plaited string reins (mine were red)
I also had white rubber reins.
Grandad towing a Rice Beaufort with a Ford Escort.
Only bits were snaffles, pelhams and kimblewicks.
It was a real treat to have my pony clipped.
Westropp over- reach boots. I had white ones to go with my rubber reins.
Getting my first pair of woof boots for my birthday.
Hacking for miles to shows and rallies.
Prize money for gymkhana games.
 
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