So what's changed? (massive essay, read only if looking to kill time!)

i couldnt afford jods so rode in some electric blue traccy bottoms
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and when we helped out at riding school after a hard mornings work mucking out, we were never encouraged to wash our hands before eating our dinner
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We used to take it in turns to lie down while the others jumped their ponies over us!!! I was the very proud owner of a Jakatex grooming kit, came in a duffle bag with a horsehead picture on it. I remember sitting on the bus with it and attempting to brush my very knotty hair with the body brush, much to the disgust of the lady sitting next to me. And overhead clippers. Light Horse magazine. Pony mag before it looked like all the other teen girlie mags. Old Victorian stables wth cast iron mangers, tiled walls and cobbles. Duraglit. Bar saddle soap. Or the one that came in a round tin with a Stubbs type horse on it; when empty it made a good bridle rack if you nailed it to the wall. Sewing up the ribbons on your riding hat, which may have had one of those detachable harnesses. The rag and bone man. Dry chaff- wish I could get some now- came in hessian sack which you had to return or get charged for it. Plaiting the straw at the front of the stable so it didn't get walked into the yard.
 
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Urgh - boiling barley....when it burnt.
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kitchen disasters ... burned boiled barley, burned linseed jelly, kitchen table ruined with that tennis shoe stuff you used to put on show girths ... where I trained, this is no word of a lie, they used the same large saucepans to boil spaghetti and string girths! Not at the same time obviously!
 
Someone else who plaited straw bed edges also with massive banks! spent hours embroidering my initials onto my navy day rug which took me six months worth of saving. Putting jute on rugs inside out when your pony was sweaty - good old jute 101 uses
 
Or the one that came in a round tin with a Stubbs type horse on it; when empty it made a good bridle rack if you nailed it to the wall.

I've got some of those hanging up outside now!
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I remember taking home on the bus, some numnahs to wash for a show; only thing was it had been raining all day and they were soaked and very sweaty. They steamed up the bus and smelt it out according to the conductor, I couldn't smell a thing wrong with them!
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Do you remember the bliss of the new Pony Club saddle after all the half panel flat jobs?
My very first horse when I was 17 and having to save up for a saddle for months. Brand new Pennwood GP for £26, wonderful!
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ah! day rugs. I remember thinking a 'lavenham' was the most exotic thing I'd ever seen. And preferring jute! Thatching under an inside out jute after a wet days hunting.Folding the newmarket underneath to within an mm of perfection to tuck under the roller. Rollers! Good old anti-cast rollers.
Who remembers the smell of 'Extra Tail'?! And splodging sulphur and lard on sweetitch.
 
I do and when anti sweat rugs were a new fangled invention which my old stud groom didn't agree with for a long time (the boss bought a couple to try which us girls thought were brilliant instead of thatching straw. I still have a few of them here but must admit to liking Thermatex better!
Stud groom would shut himself up in the feedroom to make all the feeds before we were summoned to take them round, we weren't allowed to see his secret ingredients (consisted mainly of Kossolian (I still use it!), Guinness and eggs for fussy eaters!) Anti cast roller, have one in the tack room and wouldn't be without it, fantastic bit of kit when necessary; same with a cradle, although touch wood, since blistering and firing have virtually stopped they're not needed.
 
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so much has changed !!!

i miss the old days,we did what we wanted when we wanted there was no pc attitude and noone turning thier nose up !!

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You've hit it on the head, spot on!

I also remember, even who I would term 'posh' (those with money in other words!) were always nice to you, much nicer than a lot of the 'new money' ones today I think. I can't remember ever being looked down upon because I came from a terraced house by the gasworks and were given just the same chances as long as I was good enough.
Being allowed to be escort to hacks by the time I was fifteen and able to take titchies on a lead rein for their first few times to make it fun for them to learn; can't get away with that now which is a great shame as I learnt so much too!
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Being allowed to be escort to hacks by the time I was fifteen and able to take titchies on a lead rein for their first few times to make it fun for them to learn; can't get away with that now which is a great shame as I learnt so much too!
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Me too! I escorted hacks, took kids on leadrein - and taught! At age 15 without a qualification (or indeed a supervisor) to my name. And boy did we have fun - I made the kids do everything I'd had to do - riding without stirrups, jumping without stirrups or reins, hands on head reciting a nursery rhyme, do round-the-world and scissors - sometimes at walk if the pony was quiet enough. And the complicated courses we built out of cavalletti and oil cans...

When we went to Pony Club it would be 8 of us on riding school ponies packed nose-to-tail into a cattle float without boots or bandages (but groomed to perfection and with gleaming tack that we'd have been hours cleaning the day before). Parents usually didn't come - so everything was down to us and the poor float driver.
 
If we went to a show any distance (say over 12 miles) we used to go in a cattle lorry too. As you say 8 ponies packed in without any protection, and we kids used to travel in the back with them, sitting in the luton. Used to have some wonderful sing songs
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And have to confess I used to boil my string girths in one of mums big saucepans, which was also used for cooking
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Oh lummey a "jumpers for goalposts" thread! I'm joining, I brought two forms of ID with me!!

I remember making up feeds of a scoop of oats, a scoop of barley, a fistful of pony nuts, and a dollop of sugar beet, and mixing it all up with a bit of pipe.

Jute rugs that looked lovely when they were new, but got covered in dung and went stiff, rollers, with a pad under them, string girths - I even had one of those flat half panel saddles!

Turning a rug inside out and folding the front back to cool down a horse, thatching a rug to dry one off. Turquoise coloured powder that you squirted on cuts. Woollen "show" rugs that only came in navy with red trim.

Sticking a sheepskin noseband on your bridle so your pony would look like Red Rum!!

There was a leather crafters shop owned/run by two elderly gentlemen (gawd, remember when men were gentlemen?!) who wore brown "doctor" coats and didn't mind me standing staring at the saddles they sold ...
 
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Dry chaff, or even a chaff cutter, how I wish I could get those, instead of all the mollassed cr@p.

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I got so fed up of the molassed stuff, that I changed to Graze On which is purely dried grass...
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Can I join - have been riding since the mid 60s born 63 and by 65 had won my first rosette. Ponies were tough and sensible - I remember tying a sledge to the saddle with baling string and dragging my four brothers round the field at a gallop one winter - pony had never been in harness before
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We never had colic, lameness or lamy - I still have a theory that with all the modern science, horses that would have been pts now survive to breed and produce weak offspring. Or it may be that I grew up with Dartmoor, Exmoors and Arabs (proper old style desert breeding).

Riding 3 up, at 8 going out for hours, putting pony in the back garden whilst having lunch and then off out until dark.

Roads were safer and there were less wierdo around.

I do like some of the modern stuff, when you work long hours and have little time, instant linseed is a huge bonus as are modern rugs which dry out and wash easily.

My horses are unshoed, out as much as possible and live on fibre I never measure the weight.

I do confess to be an avid user of cleaning products and sprays when showing - will this rule out my membership?
 
Snap Murphys Minder, we used to stop off at other yards or fields to pick up people, if the wagon was full it was cheaper. The older, pretty qirls used to get to sit in the cab with the driver. But it was more fun on the luton.
 
Wonder whether sharing professional transport will come back in a big way given the fuel prices - added bonus of you never needed a trainer or helper always someone who knew how and if you didn't have something (I once forgot the girths after scrubbing and whitening for hours) everyone was happy to share.
 
Can I join too?
Please note the 'elephant ear'jodhpurs the brogue shoes et all
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. Please, no comments on the bit
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. Poor pony put up with a lot. She was of Welsh extract and was sold on to a minister who drove her around his parish (or whatever ministers have???). This was taken in 1968 at the Kirkintilloch and Campsie Pony Club. M.
PS, she was called Meg
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Just found this and I am there back in 1968.
We used to hack to rallies and shows even if we were jumping BSJA at bigger shows we still hacked, rode one and led two. Easy.
I still boil barley and linseed, still look a scruff and still use oil drums for wings.
Our favourite race was to set off bareback across the fields, take your coat or jumper off and be swinging it round your head at the far end, oh and jumping dry stone walls two to a pony, bareback and in a headcollar.
Remember Vibart and Uncle Max? I do.
I used to ride for a mad woman and thought 'I'll never turn into her'
Sadly I have.
 
When we had our annual outing to Olympia we used to go dressed in our show gear, convinced that if Harvey or Eddie had a bad fall one of us would be picked to ride their horse!!!
 
*sigh* i was an avid reader of the pullen-thomson books, and the jill books and remember being heartbroken as a kid in the '80's being told that my pocket money wouldn't buy me a pony and that we didn't have anywhere to keep it.... my parents did the best they could and got a neighbour, who did have a pony to give me lessons. after that I rode what ever and when ever I could... don't remember bran mashes and linseed though, possibly because I was only trusted with pony nuts and soaked sugar beet. I remember my mum getting very frustrated with me coming home with pockets of nuts. Didn't get to go to pony club or gymkanas though.... something that I seem to be making up for now though
 
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