Terminology?

Skib said:
I dont think so. A halter is made of rope and can be tied with a slip knot
A head collar is leather or nylon straps with a buckle to fasten.
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Yes that's what it is now, hence the confusion of the girls who worked at the yard when I asked for a halter. When I was riding as a child in the 60s/70s we called headcollars halter. I dont recall seeing a halter made of ropes.
 
Hackback said:
I dont recall seeing a halter made of ropes.
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Really? We had more rope and canvas halters than leather headcollars back in the day, 50s through to 70s I am amazed you never saw any. Perhaps we weren't posh enough and still behind the times. 😊 I cant find any images to show you but they were very similar to the Welsh cob show halters, except the flat braided bit shown in this image would have been a flat piece of (usually) striped thick canvas material and no metal slip ring it would have simply been the canvas with a split hole through it for the rope to thread through. Or just the plain rope ones that you still see quite a lot of these days at sales and some showing too.
welsh halters.webp
 
Quartering. Leaving rug on part of the horse to keep it warm whist grooming. Tail cut neatly horizontal at the bottom is a bang tail. Strapping or banging,using a whisp made out of hay or straw to build muscle usually on the quarters. Grooming not pampering. Horse muck or droppings not poo. Chilled water is cold water with a little hot added to make it lukewarm. Aids are instructions for the horse when ridden. Halter is something made of rope, white ones are sometimes seen in the show ring on native mares. Head collar is made of leather with brass fittings and nowadays can be nylon and nickel fittings. A trailer isn't a horsebox. A blacksmith is now correctly called a farrier,was always just a blacksmith in ye olde days.thatching is stuffing straw under a jute stable rug to dry a wet horse. Linament for rubbing on legs after hard work.
 
Sanversera said:
A blacksmith is now correctly called a farrier,was always just a blacksmith in ye olde days.
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Not so. The farrier shod horses but the blacksmith repaired machinery and did any metal work.

The vet travelled from yard to yard and so doubled as a farrier. My gt gt grandfather William Dewar graduated MRCVS in 1839. In 1841 he was "entertained to dinner by a gathering of 50 people and given a handsome silver watch and a saddle and bridle, " a tribute to his work as a vet" which he must have been doing for years with no formal training.

In the 1841 census he was listed as a farrier. In the 1851 census he was listed as a veterinary surgeon. He was the first FRCVS in Scotland, a tall man with very long arms a great rider who rode many miles in a day and was known for his "terrible horses".

A generation later, medical treatment of animals had been formalised. His son (not an ancesror of mine) was Principal of the Royal Dick Vet. College in Edinburgh
 
Hackback said:
Yes that's what it is now, hence the confusion of the girls who worked at the yard when I asked for a halter. When I was riding as a child in the 60s/70s we called headcollars halter. I dont recall seeing a halter made of ropes.
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As per other's comments, as a child also riding in the 60s and 70s, headcollars were webbing with one of 2 types of buckles, or posh leather for going out. There was a spell of rawhide headcollars too, horrible things.
Halters were rope and we were forbidden to use them for tying up.

I've always kept rope halters in grabbing distance on the yard as easy to slip on anything. Decent ones in the box as used for in hand classes for some breeds still.
1000000419.jpg
Pic above of what I called a cheap rope halter for yard use.

Yes, taught to quarter, strap, plait straw in, use logs to tie, thatch etc too ☺️
 
Mrs Jingle said:
Really? We had more rope and canvas halters than leather headcollars back in the day, 50s through to 70s I am amazed you never saw any. Perhaps we weren't posh enough and still behind the times. 😊 I cant find any images to show you but they were very similar to the Welsh cob show halters, except the flat braided bit shown in this image would have been a flat piece of (usually) striped thick canvas material and no metal slip ring it would have simply been the canvas with a split hole through it for the rope to thread through. Or just the plain rope ones that you still see quite a lot of these days at sales and some showing too.
View attachment 171419
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I doubt we were posher than you. I'm talking riding hairy ponies at a riding school, I wasn't lucky enough to have my own pony. I cant remember what the 'halters' were made of, very much doubt they were leather, but I meant I can't remember seeing one like the knotted rope type that you have to tie to fasten. I wish I could remember what they were like back then.
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
As per other's comments, as a child also riding in the 60s and 70s, headcollars were webbing with one of 2 types of buckles, or posh leather for going out. There was a spell of rawhide headcollars too, horrible things.
Halters were rope and we were forbidden to use them for tying up.

I've always kept rope halters in grabbing distance on the yard as easy to slip on anything. Decent ones in the box as used for in hand classes for some breeds still.
View attachment 171426
Pic above of what I called a cheap rope halter for yard use.

Yes, taught to quarter, strap, plait straw in, use logs to tie, thatch etc too ☺️
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This looks like the kind of halter I tie together with a lead rope/dog leash/any other piece of rope when unexpectedly catching a loose horse. Didn't know it had a name.
 
Yes, terrierliz! I was also taught to ‘quarter’, as in fold back the front left quarter of the rug, brush, fold back down, fold forward the back left quarter of the rug, brush, fold back down, and so on round the horse. Much harder when rugs were less technical and thicker!
 
Never come across the word 'quarter' before, in that context, but I try to avoid full body clips like the plague.

Only came across the word 'headcollar' in the UK. In the US, 'halter' is any item, nylon, leather, rope, whatever, that you put on a horse's head to lead it from A to B.
 
I read all the ‘old school’ horse care books and pony manuals as a kid so I grew up with all the old terminology.
Set fair a stable, a wisp, strapping, quartering…

I also used to put straw under a sweat rug to help wick away moisture and we used duvets and blankets under rugs.

I miss those days :)
 
We had day beds and night beds. Everything had halters that were webbing noseband and head pieces, with a bit of fine twisted rope for a throat latch, the lead ropes had a loop and were threaded through a loop at the back of the noseband and through the lead rope loop. No quick release clips. Otherwise rope halters such as the ones shown. Leather headcollars were either really posh or ex military stock.
 
Hackback said:
Yes that's what it is now, hence the confusion of the girls who worked at the yard when I asked for a halter. When I was riding as a child in the 60s/70s we called headcollars halter. I dont recall seeing a halter made of ropes.
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We used a halter that we were given when we bought our first horse in 1975. We had previously been used to using headcollars when tieing up ponies between lessons at a long established RS. I don't remember any of the old school folk that I knew in those days ever calling a headcollar a halter. We all knew the difference.
 
I can't recall every using halters. I do recall being on a Pony Club team and my pony overnighting at another yard - their groom polished my lead headcollar to the extent I didn't recognise it. We lived in town and kept pony at a friend's farm - our lifestyles were somewhat different and I think that was a fab thing about PC.
 
jojo5 said:
Yes, terrierliz! I was also taught to ‘quarter’, as in fold back the front left quarter of the rug, brush, fold back down, fold forward the back left quarter of the rug, brush, fold back down, and so on round the horse. Much harder when rugs were less technical and thicker!
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this is what I call quartering too.
 
Hackback said:
Yes that's what it is now, hence the confusion of the girls who worked at the yard when I asked for a halter. When I was riding as a child in the 60s/70s we called headcollars halter. I dont recall seeing a halter made of ropes.
Click to expand...
Just checked with my mum (born 1951) and she said she always called them headcollars and the rope ones were halters (i still have some 40 year old halters i use when clipping!) Maybe it's regional? We're South West
 
onemoretime said:
I often use the term "hot ragging" when I hot cloth a clipped horse and people often ask me what I mean as they have never heard of it yet Ive been doing it for over 50 years.
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I felt very smug when my friend 'who knows everything' had not heard of hot clothing when I suggested she hot cloth rather than bath for a winter show. I gleefully gave her a demonstration when she asked how it was done 😜
 
Crackerz said:
Just checked with my mum (born 1951) and she said she always called them headcollars and the rope ones were halters (i still have some 40 year old halters i use when clipping!) Maybe it's regional? We're South West
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Maybe (I'm Yorkshire). Maybe it was just the RS I went to that called them halters. I'd certainly never heard of headcollars until I returned to riding. Feel a bit stupid now 🙃
 
"Menage" really bugs me for many reasons.

1. It's manège not ménage. Ménage means "household". "Ménage à trois" literally means "a household of three" - a throuple.
2. Both manège/ménage are pretentious. It's just a school.
3. If you insist on using French terms, carrière is the correct term for an outdoor school, a manège is an indoor school.

As a linguist, I get the common usage argument but I reserve the right to be bugged by it.
 
Skib said:
Not so. The farrier shod horses but the blacksmith repaired machinery and did any metal work.

The vet travelled from yard to yard and so doubled as a farrier. My gt gt grandfather William Dewar graduated MRCVS in 1839. In 1841 he was "entertained to dinner by a gathering of 50 people and given a handsome silver watch and a saddle and bridle, " a tribute to his work as a vet" which he must have been doing for years with no formal training.

In the 1841 census he was listed as a farrier. In the 1851 census he was listed as a veterinary surgeon. He was the first FRCVS in Scotland, a tall man with very long arms a great rider who rode many miles in a day and was known for his "terrible horses".

A generation later, medical treatment of animals had been formalised. His son (not an ancesror of mine) was Principal of the Royal Dick Vet. College in Edinburgh
Click to expand...
Was your Gt Gt Grandfather related to the Dewars whiskey ?
 
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