Menages remember when

[FairyLights]

no one had them? We all schooled in a corner of the field, we went hacking, no one bothered about being "correcct". Everythins got too complicated now adays, wheres the fun?

 

[fburton]

What, like this...?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWd_r2sOPhs

(Btw, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/manège)

 

[ElleSkywalker]

I still do school in a slightly less rutty than the rest area of my field. In fact my 'schooling' session last night on Gingerface was suspiciously like that clip.........!

 

[HaffiesRock]

What is this schooling you speak of?

I HATE schooling and avoid it like the plague! We have a small sand school that is too small to do much in anyway, so I occasionally use it to check the basics are still there, but otherwise its hacking all the way for me

 

[Shantara]

I have to have 3 schooling lessons a week as part of my job training, it's great fun to be learning how to do things "properly" however, it does get a little boring.
I'm a hacker/jumper through and through! Once I start going up my BHS stages, it'll start getting more fun I think!

 

[Woolly Hat n Wellies]

As a kid I did most of my riding in open fields. And when I say open, I mean my dad had a finite number of gates which moved around the farm with the cattle, so all the fields I rode in were completely free of barriers between me and a beeline back to the stable, or anywhere else a naughty pony fancied going! When I was jumping, my mum was always yelling at me to "use all the space!"... turns out that doesn't apply when jumping a single jump in a 20 acre field... wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

[JFTDWS]

I still do all my schooling (virtually) in a not very level, not overly nice field. And he's competing elementary so it's not like we're just ignoring the idea of correct work either

It means when we hit a surface for a competition, everying is a hundred-fold easier and that the 4 year old I want to event should be pretty sure footed when it comes to jumping on grass as that's pretty much all he's ever known. We have plenty of fun with it too

*disclaimer: stupid stuff alert:

Mind you, this is the "dressage" pony who spends half his life up to his neck in flood water, playing mounted games bareback or generally larking about like an idiot, so perhaps we're not representative of the population!

 

[*sprinkles*]

As a kid I did all my riding in massive open fields that surrounded our property. We had some awesomely hair raising experiences out there haha !! Our ponies had no qualms about simply bogging off back to the yard when they'd decided they'd had enough hooleying about for the day !! One particular pony would plod along quite happily for an hour or so, check her watch, was of the opinion that it was clocking off time and high tail it home, jumping as many fences as it took to create a straight beeline for her stable. We really learned how to stay on haha !! Generally it was a great way to learn to ride though, we had no fear back in the day !!

 

[Rollin]

I remember, when I was a child, 50's 60's the ponies got so fat in summer we had to ride bareback. Only one middleweight hunter girth to fit four horses!!! Arena?? What is that?

I had never heard of laminitis till I returned to riding in the 80's.

 

[Suelin]

no one had them? We all schooled in a corner of the field, we went hacking, no one bothered about being "correcct". Everythins got too complicated now adays, wheres the fun?

This. Oddly enough we still competed and still won things.

 

[bluedanube]

I remember when they were manèges... Oh I've just checked and they still are...;-)

 

[TGM]

It's not that hard for me to remember, as up to nine months ago we had no school! But actually I don't see why having a school means you can't have fun. Having a school doesn't mean you have to drill your horse all the time, you can still choose to hack out, ride bareback in a headcollar, do gymkhana games, dismount by sliding off your horse's bum or whatever floats your boat really!