skewbaldpony
Well-Known Member
My children are great devourers of Pullein Thompsons and what have you, and we got into a long conversation about stable management, then (as in P-Ts etc, so 40s/50s) 'In My Day' (70s/80s) and now.
Ponies lived out year round and rarely got laminitis (fertilised grassland? Climate change?) and were fed oats if stabled. By my day, we didn't feed ponies oats, but horses ate oats, even horses ridden by hopeless people ate oats. But ponies were considered to 'hot up' if you gave them oats. (invention and marketing of 'pony nuts'?) now, even horses don't eat oats, what are you mad, woman? (extensive development and more marketing of various horse feeds. Many of which, if I'm not mistaken, probably have oats in them?!)
Hunters hunted in the winter, and were turned away in the summer, when you showed the broodmares and foals, rode the ponies, and maybe had something else to show, or jump. That lot lived out all winter. (Less people with more time and money than sense?)
I had an 8 week fittening regime for a hunter drummed into me so hard when I did my AI that I can still remember it 30 years later, like it was yesterday, it was treated as the single most important part of the stable management! All that walking on roads and trotting up and down hills! (What on earth did they do in Norfolk?!) There were no two ways about it, that was what you did and it started in August!!! (hunting ban, obviously)
Children were expected to learn how to do all sorts of perilous exercises, and ride with a really independent seat before they learned to jump anything, and then they were expected to jump blooming great fences without batting an eye. They were expected to do this out hunting, in the show ring, on the same pony they used for mounted games and everything else, and they rode 12.2s till about 12, 13.2s til 14 and 14.2s til 16. Horses were for grown ups. (Children are a bit taller. But not actually that much.)
As you can see, some of it we found easy to explain - but what about the rest? For me, some of it's improvement, some of it is just tragic.
Anyone care to pontificate while waiting for the weekend?!
Ponies lived out year round and rarely got laminitis (fertilised grassland? Climate change?) and were fed oats if stabled. By my day, we didn't feed ponies oats, but horses ate oats, even horses ridden by hopeless people ate oats. But ponies were considered to 'hot up' if you gave them oats. (invention and marketing of 'pony nuts'?) now, even horses don't eat oats, what are you mad, woman? (extensive development and more marketing of various horse feeds. Many of which, if I'm not mistaken, probably have oats in them?!)
Hunters hunted in the winter, and were turned away in the summer, when you showed the broodmares and foals, rode the ponies, and maybe had something else to show, or jump. That lot lived out all winter. (Less people with more time and money than sense?)
I had an 8 week fittening regime for a hunter drummed into me so hard when I did my AI that I can still remember it 30 years later, like it was yesterday, it was treated as the single most important part of the stable management! All that walking on roads and trotting up and down hills! (What on earth did they do in Norfolk?!) There were no two ways about it, that was what you did and it started in August!!! (hunting ban, obviously)
Children were expected to learn how to do all sorts of perilous exercises, and ride with a really independent seat before they learned to jump anything, and then they were expected to jump blooming great fences without batting an eye. They were expected to do this out hunting, in the show ring, on the same pony they used for mounted games and everything else, and they rode 12.2s till about 12, 13.2s til 14 and 14.2s til 16. Horses were for grown ups. (Children are a bit taller. But not actually that much.)
As you can see, some of it we found easy to explain - but what about the rest? For me, some of it's improvement, some of it is just tragic.
Anyone care to pontificate while waiting for the weekend?!
