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

Oh, this thread is making me smile so hard! Everything is so familiar - have particular memories of jute/NZ arugs; string girths and the riding hats with either the elastic or those horrible chin pieces - remember how they gave you a spotty chin?!! Would like to add the following:
Yellow string riding gloves which always seemed to go grey after the first wash; those Jacatex adverts which were in every horsey magazine; watching "White Horses" and wanting a horse called Boris; when showjumpers were household names and almost everyone knew who they were!

Happy days
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I'm enjoying this thread so much...

Cycling to my (borrowed) pony with the saddle on my handlebars & the bridle over my shoulder, trying to avoid getting my foot in the reins & falling off.
Putting on rugs with rollers only to find them wearing them upside down in the morning.
Sore withers/back from said rollers!
Watching Dallas & thinking how odd X-surcingles looked on those 'American' rugs.
Sewing nametapes onto my one tail bandage ready for camp.
Riding in jeans - never jodhpurs!
Getting told off at my first PC rally for wearing a safety harness on my hat - the Pony Club disapproved!
Never being nervous!
 
Remember all the above, having jute rugs for the ponies was very posh. Remember our local saddler in a part of town where a saddler would not be these days making a pair of front boots with velcro for my 11.3 jumping pony (bless), had never seen any such thing before. Also taking the ponies in the trailer to the farriers to be hot shod at the forge - where they were is now under office blocks. Two (to my eye) very elderly gentlemen who kept rabbits or chickens (can't remember) and carefully applied hoof oil to the finshed feet. Also more recently remember when I was brave enough to jump Foxhunter tracks - where has that person gone!
 
I still have an old red string girth lurking in the back of my tack room at my dads
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The last New Zeland rug was used for in the kennel for dog bedding
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Ah this is such a good thread, brings back memories! I remember.. helping out at the riding school, being dragged around by shetlands, mucking out loads of stables and then going to get chips...and never washing my hands!!! I remember getting changed in the car after school on the way to my riding lesson and the naughty riding school ponies -the amount of times I've been in a hedge I can't even count anymore!

Weird because I went back to my old riding school about a year ago and haven't been there since I was about 11 and it looked tiny! Yet when I was there it seemed huge! Anyone else had that?!!
 
Drop nosebands
Twisted snaffles
Standing martingales
Saddles with serge linings
All reins were plain leather, only hunters had rubber ones and then they were always in orange
Being at the riding stables at dawn to catch the ponies and have a free ride, bareback in a headcollar
Doing the same in the evening
Cantering accross the West common in Lincoln when bring the horses up from field, then waiting til they were not puffing before going to yard, as we were only supposed to walk.
When all feeds were straights
Remember those Worldbeater canvas NZ with the chains attached to the leg straps
All the blankets put under jute rugs to keep em warm
All the foam under the rollers
A horse was either lame or sound
You only ever got a vet out if it was colic or something broken
If lame they were rested, then worked then if still not sound on the boat...(sorry but that is how it was!)
Newmarket was just a place in Suffolk!
Horses were less pampered, worked more, lasted longer and cost us less.
Jills Gymkhana
My friend Flicka
Yellow polo necks
String Gloves
FUN
 
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Not really on topic but this thread made me think back to my "best ever horse moment"
Has to be on my now PTS ex racer, cantering across a field in Rivington at 6am, nobody in sight and all I could see was his breath and hear his hooves. Magical

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Ah, now this reminds me of one of my first outings on Henry, way before I owned him. Friend was doing an endurance ride up Rivington and I went along to ride Henry, who was about 6yrs, then. I left her at the venue and me and Henry explored half the National Park, in an absolute downpour. I was wetter than wet, but didn't care. I had a fabulous time splashing through streams, up rocky bridleways and at one point some spontaneous cross-country, when he jumped a roadside ditch at the mere sight of a lorry. After about 3 hrs, I got back to the cattle waggon (her transport!) and found her really p*ssed off. Turned out that most of them had turned back due to the weather and she'd been waiting for me about 2hrs. Whoopsie, lol!
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My first hat was a chin-cup one. All I knew was that a NZ rug was posh. People gloated that they had a 'New Zealand'. I was never quite sure if they were made in NZ, but too shy to ask. Nobody used shavings, we all rode bareback and I wore leggings as I couldn't afford joddies.

The only riding gloves were pimple palms, then those Magic gloves came out and people got very excited. Long boots came in leather or rubber (no PVC) and wellies were green, green and possibly green.

A saddle fit a horse if it didn't slide off when you got on. People used folded blankets or towels as saddlecloths. I had a woollen numnah - still have it somewhere!

Ooh and saddle soap came in bars, not sprays, or even tubs!!

Can you still get NZ rugs? Shame if you can't - they were much more robust!
 
We paid £200 for my first pony including tack - and he lasted years.

didnt have vet insurance.

he didnt wear a rug for any occasion.

Hacked miles to a show, rode him all day, then hacked home at night.
 

Those riding macks.They seemed to be made of sheet rubber and canvas, and you got just as wet with them on ,as not.
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do you mean those things with the cape shoulder, full length with thigh starps?

still got mine. used it last week due to the weather and remembered then why id stuck it in the attic!

i remember years ago wearing one and dismounting, getting thigh strap caught on cantle and dangling upside down, stuck...until the stitching broke!
bloomin' bombproof that horse, he was just watching me struggle, with THAT look on his face
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This thread is brilliant!
Remember a friend and I getting told off for cantering 2 shetlands bareback up to the field at a riding school. Only allowed to walk.
Hats that had white elastic as chinstraps.
Jumping absolutely anything that was vaguely jumpable out hacking. Even if it was a forestry pole gate with a 2 stride run up.
Hacking to everything, often hours each way.
You didn't get back pads or riser pads.
You rarely saw boots on Horses.
Did sweet itch exist 'back in the day?'.
No supplements.
Orange reins.
String girths, gloves and sweat rugs.
The weekly (might have been fornightly?) magazine 'Horse sense', you got binders to keep them in.
 
all riding lessons took place on grassy fields - going round circles that endless horses foot prints had made, no artificial surfaces then! Second hand jodphurs (only available in buff?), with sticky out thigh bits. No fly spray - yet all the horses and ponies survived! A broken leg for a horse meant the end - at least that has improved!!
 
gymkana games £1.50 block entry
most of us rode in felt pads
string girths
string sweat rugs
you were posh if you hacked in jodphurs
we hacked to all the local shows
kids being kids and blasting around on their ponies
kids having no fear
feeding bran, oats and pony nuts
 
I remember when

I used to ride for an hour to get to pony club - 30 mins home!
Riding bareback all summer..
riding my horse for the first time after breaking him in myself..
going to my first ponyclub camp..
Happy days - shame they were so long ago!
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I remember when ... lessons cost 10/- (that's ten shillings/50p for anyone under 30!). Horses had jute stable rugs with anti-cast rollers and Witney blankets folded back over the withers, and canvas NZ rugs for turnout that were almost impossible to lift when soaked. We gave colic drenches from a glass bottle with a rubber tube; horses were never wormed and never vaccinated - and horse dentists were unheard of. Bone Radiol was the answer to every joint injury.

All girths were string or leather; few saddles were worn with numnahs; most bridles had drop nosebands or cavessons. Nearly all bits were snaffles and the occasional pelham. Reins were often plaited string, which hurt, or plain leather, which slipped.

Jodhs were quite often cavalry twill with butterfly thighs; jodhpur boots had straps; riding macs were smelly rubber and very stiff; hats were cork-lined, squashy, faded to grey, and the elastic was often pulled up over the hat, not round the chin.

We cantered on every grass verge and jumped all the drainage ditches. We'd hack miles to the local gymkhanas, and back again. If we did get transport, it was a cattle float with the horses packed in nose-to-tail, tacked up, and not a boot or bandage between them.

Goodness, we had fun!
 
Jods only came in cream
Cycling to stables with tack over handlebars of bike
Cleaning tack in the kitchen to my Mum's disgust
String girths and pulling the pony's legs forward to make sure no skin was pinched
Grooming kits that were only brushes and a hoof pick
Cantering on verges nad jumping the little sitches
Hats with string to size
Ryan's Son was my favourite horse
Silver Brumby books

Blimey, I'm getting on a bit!
 
I still use string rugs.... and I still thatch
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I remember lessons being £3.
if a saddle bridged a little you just stuck some foam from an old sofa under it.
I remember hacking to my first show with my first pony and then wimping out because I didnt have jodhpurs.
and later on my dad giving me £3 and taking me to the local second hand tack shop, where they had no jodhs under a fiver, except a really grotty pair. Me being so desperate for jodhpurs that I bought them and my mother spent days getting the stains out. Then she bought me some lycra harry hall ones for my birthday and I remember her being horrified that they cost so much (£11)
years later taking bottles of cola and wafer bars to the RS where we sat in the hay barn for our lunch. The YOs used to go home for an hour and a half leaving the place to a bunch of 12yo's.... we'd snatch a pony each and do a quick round of the fields, bareback.
Jumping anything we could.
No Hi Viz.
sweaty chin cups.
Having long rubber boots was posh. Someone from the hunt gave me my first pair which we far too big, but I stuffed them out with newspaper
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Saving voucers from H&P for a rosette.
Chopping machines... my father has minus three fingers thanks to one of those machines.
always carrying baler twine, incase a rein/ stirrup leather/ girth broke lol.
The old gardener coming from the village to trim my pony's feet as the blacksmith lived too far away.
Getting up at 5am to exercise the horses before school, we didnt have hi viz and it was pitch black.
Aged 14, getting up at 5am, exercising said horses, mucking out, feeding, coming home, going to school, coming home, working, doing horses again, going back to work.... 5 days a week. The other two days I did extra jobs to earn me enough for livery costs.
Anti cast rollers.
Handpumps for water at the yard.
 
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Those horrible green quilted waistcoats.

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Lavenham? I still have one, and the matching jacket!
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About 25 years old now, but haven't fallen to bits so still get worn.
 
I remember going on day rides where we rode for 8 hours and took a packed lunch,
my pony had an orange string girth and orange plaited reins as well as red suede knee rolls on her saddle
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New Zealands weighed a tonne when wet and jute rugs with rollers were the latest craze.
You only went to a show if you could hack there.
People wore quilted jackets or tweeds with elbow patches, biege ribbed johds and mars red johd boots and thought they looked cool.
Having spots on my chin from the sweaty chin cup.
Cantering on the grass verges and riding bareback on the roads.
I remember wanting to own Freddie from H&P or Black Boy from the Jill books.
 
Awwww.

Helping out at the yard for hours to get a 10 minute bareback hack to the field, or a hack out in the forest where we'd set up jumps and race ponies..

waffle rugs were posh and newfangled

boots... what boots? Nobody's pony needed boots. Or rugs. Or clips.

Only YO being allowed in the sugarbeet bin, which was tied with string to show which one it was.

magic gloves... multicoloured ones!

Long plastic boots. Or a pair of slightly heeled (as in high heels) boots with zips on the inside when I was a teenager

Grooming the stallions ages 12
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it could be different from a snaffle if you were wacky, as long as it had eggbut sides it was still kind (!? just our yard i think)

Pony nuts or competition mix with either mollychop or honeychop. nothing else. My horse going loopy fed on competition mix in the summer because Yo considered him in hard work. The feed companies considered him in light!

Ah, those chin cups. Mother refusing to throw away her hat because it was still good, even though it was about 3 standards out of date.

Standards changing and everyone having to wear mushroom hats.

Polypads were indeed a new invention. Boett getting invented. Mobile phone holders getting invented.
 
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