Let's reminisce...!!

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missieh

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Just thinking about the good 'ole days of owning horses and riding. Things have certainly changed a fair bit, and not for the better IMO. I remember when only experienced people broke horses in....when a good schoolmaster was in his teens and they were worth their weight in gold (not thrown aside for a younger model)...when we only ever fed straights... (and not supplements for every perceived deficiency in the world) ... when it was a snaffle, a pelham or a kimblewick .... when you had a jute rug and a New Zealand rug (and that was it, and only if you clipped) ... when gymkhanas were everywhere .... when riding schools were everywhere .... when horses were actually ridden !!

Any more memories on what has not changed for the better!
 
Hear hear !and there were only 2 types of tweed coat and beige was the only colour that jodds came in ! and on the down side jute rugs that were heavy and smelly and rock hard leather boots, a fancy browband meant two-tone velvet not diamonte. But you could ride safely on the roads!
 
Gymkhanas where games were played by everyone.
Hacking everywhere to get to a show or a days hunting (and home again)
Farriers shoeing cold because there were no portable forges. Farriers making all the shoes.
Riding bareback with halters made from bailer twine, riding one and leading four to and from the fields.
Feeding straights and cutting chaff with the old hand turned chaff cutter.
Clippers that were powered by a bicycle (now that was really outdated even in my time)
At shows lead rein classes where the rider was lead by a mounted rider.
Pony Club tests were straight D, C, B, and A no plusses or in-between tests.
Going up jumping lanes taking off or putting on your jacket - with no reins or stirrups.
No thought of suing if you got hurt.
Falling off as a regular risk and just jumping back on - bruises being proudly worn!
Not being allowed to ride bareback unless you could vault on from the ground.
Flat old saddles that made you learn balance.

I could go on and on - not sure all are better than the changes but they are memories.
 
:D i remember them days well .. lol i have taken a far too long break.. i now know nothing.. i even ride wrong :o :o ..can't for the life of me turn my knees out!!!! lol .. but i do know when i get my own horse again i am going to feed straights and mix it like i used to ..i can't help but think that horses dinner's look really boring now!!lol! :p
 
missieh said:
Just thinking about the good 'ole days of owning horses and riding. Things have certainly changed a fair bit, and not for the better IMO. I remember when only experienced people broke horses in....when a good schoolmaster was in his teens and they were worth their weight in gold (not thrown aside for a younger model)...when we only ever fed straights... (and not supplements for every perceived deficiency in the world) ... when it was a snaffle, a pelham or a kimblewick .... when you had a jute rug and a New Zealand rug (and that was it, and only if you clipped) ... when gymkhanas were everywhere .... when riding schools were everywhere .... when horses were actually ridden !!

Any more memories on what has not changed for the better!
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oh it all seemed much simpler then:D
every morning when we were on 'duties' in college we would go to the yard and muck out, straw bedding and 3 muckpiles perfectly squared off:) then you had to quarter your horses if they were rugged, feed breakfast and then toddle off back to college for our breakfast:D
i remember velvet hats with only a bit of elastic to keep it on your head and then the horrible skull caps came in with rubber chin cups on the harness:( i used to chew mine lol.
i remember when the first stable rugs came out, my friend had one and we thought she was dead posh lol:cool:
ohhh and those quilted coats, blue or green usually with corduroy collar, i so wanted one but never got one lol:o
 
And sweat rugs! Or thatching with your jute rug inside out with shoulders folder back underneath the roller. No cooller rugs back then! Feeding bran mashes!

Ibblebibble - were they the "Loveson" jackets? Oh and then laterly the "puffa" jackets.
 
Foxhunter49 said:
Gymkhanas where games were played by everyone.
Hacking everywhere to get to a show or a days hunting (and home again)
Farriers shoeing cold because there were no portable forges. Farriers making all the shoes.
Riding bareback with halters made from bailer twine, riding one and leading four to and from the fields.
Feeding straights and cutting chaff with the old hand turned chaff cutter.
Clippers that were powered by a bicycle (now that was really outdated even in my time)
At shows lead rein classes where the rider was lead by a mounted rider.
Pony Club tests were straight D, C, B, and A no plusses or in-between tests.
Going up jumping lanes taking off or putting on your jacket - with no reins or stirrups.
No thought of suing if you got hurt
Falling off as a regular risk and just jumping back on - bruises being proudly worn
Not being allowed to ride bareback unless you could vault on from the ground.
Flat old saddles that made you learn balance.
I could go on and on - not sure all are better than the changes but they are memories.
Click to expand...

Yip i remember, and sadly health n safety have put a stop to it all
 
Aaahh the memories... Used to love those jumping lessons with no reins or stirrups, are they allowed to do that these days.

No fear of litigation, every time i fell off, which was often! my favourite old riding instructor used to say, you're not a good rider until you've fallen off at least a hundred times... I probably did!
And my parents never sued once!

It was a string girth and sheepskin numnah, there just weren't any other options.
 
Something else that has long gone past the board - at a show if you had forgotten something then anyone would lend you theirs and you could leave your ponies tied to the horse lines without any problems.
Tack could be left lying around and no one nicked it!
There was always rivalry but it was friendly and it seems to me that there was far less bitchiness then there is now!
Complaints at shows were rarely heard.
I do recall one when some mother came to the secretary's tent and bemoaned the fact that my elderly riding instructor was judging a cross country fence and giving 'her' pupils instructions on how to jump it and chasing the ponies over it.
The secretary told the woman to go back and watch because she chased ALL ponies over the fence!
 
I remember being very good at making haynets by plaiting bailer twine, but round bales dont come with that now! Making my own velvet browband and the yo making me feed bran mash and treacle to everything when a horse sniffed, and jodphurs that sort of stuck out at the hips :D
 
I remember those good old days...everything semed so much simplar then

the New Zealands that weighed a ton when wet and the jute rugs with surcingles cos you had to use blankets underneath if you wanted to make them warmer.

Jumping on and riding back from the fields with just a headcollar.

I remember when those snazzy quilted stable rugs came out but again only one thickness so still ahd to use blankets and jodpurs started to be available in dark blue an black as well as beige.

Pony nuts were a new invention but all you could get were nuts none of the multitude of choices you have to try to deal with now, supplements...what were supplements :p

and is it just me or do horses seem to suffer from so many more illnesses and problems than they used to...or was it that in those old days I had ponys who were hard as nails...unlike these ponce horses I now own :D
 
lol - I love these threads

Cantering on the verges and jumping the drainage ditches.
Cantering across the park and jumping the park benches!
Hacking 5 miles to your friends - riding all day all over the area - then hacking back. All respective parents were glad to see the back of you! Pony never lame, unfit or sorry for itself.
the local PC x country 'open' class was the intermediate BE course
 
I was born at the wrong time...90s child, missed all this :(

though I do remember when I was 8 having lessons for £8 an hour...that's laughable only 10 years on!
 
chestnutmarelover said:
Can someone build a time machine....I wanna go back lol
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Can you save a space for me please!!

I used to love putting blankets and jute rugs on, the horses were set for bed time, and it was almost a ritual, the blankets had to be neat and tidy.

If you wanted to put condition on in the winter, or make a warm feed, it was boiled barley, not conditioning cubes. I loved the smell of it cooking.

Summers seemed endless, everyone rode in the snow, and august meant stubble fields for a good gallop!!

The smell of neatsfoot oil.

Keeping horses has got too complicated!!!
 
Not having my own horse until my late 20's, in the late 90's, I missed a lot of this, but I do remember my first gallop.

A riding holiday in Cornwall, a group of us, and I was probably the least experienced, I'd spent years bumping around a riding school in trot, whenever I could blag a lesson from my parents. On the holiday the owner matched us all up with a horse or pony, and we went for a little 'shake down' ride to the pub along the lanes. I guess he was happy with how we all shaped up, because on the way home he opened a field gate, and the whole group (probably 15 of us) shot off, flat out up and away and out of site! Amazing, my first ever gallop (note - had never cantered!), and I stayed on, brilliant. Behind me was carnage - a few fell off, one broke her collar bone, then the french lad who had no english left the yard gate open and all the horse (40?) escaped, tack and all, into the night!

And nobody got sued, the place didn't get shut down, and we were all out riding again the next day!

The same place had an interesting girthing arrangement. They had used old car seat belts - had a buckle stitched to either end, that was one of your girths. The other girth was half of a string girth - remember they always came in two halves!!!?
 
Does anyone remember I think they where called Jackatex use to advertise jackets jod's etc in the newspapers. My first pair of jod's where thick brown cord like material with great big sticky out wings. Remember my first posh pair of white 2nd hand cord jod's slim fitting use to save them just for shows and scrubbed them with ajax to get them clean. Shows were run by the riding school so I use to steward all day but they always had a stewards race at the end of the day so had to look smart in my white jod's.

Also use to take the halters home go to the field in the morning ride one and lead 3 back to the riding school early morning ready for the lessons for the lucky ones who could afford lessons. I was quite happy just to be around the ponies mucking out grooming tacking up etc just to have the chance to ride back to the field. Think the scarey thing is I was only about 10yr when I did this would never let my 10yr old grandaughter do this :-)
 
Foxhunter49 said:
Something else that has long gone past the board - at a show if you had forgotten something then anyone would lend you theirs and you could leave your ponies tied to the horse lines without any problems.
Tack could be left lying around and no one nicked it!
There was always rivalry but it was friendly and it seems to me that there was far less bitchiness then there is now!
Complaints at shows were rarely heard.
Click to expand...

Come endurance riding - it's still like this :)
 
Shoes were £2 a full set, hay was 2 shillings a bale and straw was 1 shilling. red plastic baling string didnt exist it was all sisal. big bales didnt exist.
 
Woring all day at the riding schol for a free lesson.
Going out all day for a ride and not worry about time or phones or anything just you, your horse and friends.
Hunter wellies that really did last
Local shows every weekend and you could hack to all of them and nearly everyone did.
If something broke it was fixed with baler twine not just thrown awy and a new one brought.
Getting everyones old blankets to put under the jute rugs at night.
Falling off and just getting back up and getting on weather hacking or i the ring competing.
ponies that would stay in the field all week in the winter then go off hacking for hours on a sat and sunday.
You still rode in the rain
Please please please can you save me a space in the time machine.
 
When I was learning to ride in the late fifties, a lot of the ponies at the school were docked.(I can't remember when docking was made illegal - I think in the forties, so they must have been old ponies). There was no school, so you just got lead by a stable girl out on a hack and learnt as you went along. Most ponies were ridden in pelhams with two reins - I remember how my hands used to ache after a ride from trying to hold them as instructed. My mother, at great expense, bought me a proper riding mac. It was ghastly, made out of a rubberised tent like material that covered your knees, and had straps that went under your thighs to hold it down. There were three punched holes under each arm, and this was the only ventilation. I used to sweat buckets in it!
 
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