Terminology?

Ponies didn't come into loose boxes.
They were dragged in from the field, scrubbed up to be presentable, ridden then back out asap!!
I'm very aware of that being the norm in places, however at this yard, there was no turnout. They all had a minimum 2 week break at grass a few miles away. We used to pop them in the indoor school for a leg stretch.
 
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
And I'm just a few years younger than your mum, in W.Yorks, so not that regional!

I wonder if this is a 'recollections may vary' situation, lol!
 
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
The point being we called the farrier "blacksmith". I'm phoning the blacksmith to come and shoe the pony. Related to this we never said the pony was "shod". Always "shoed" . this is because everyone thought we were saying "shot" thought we'd had our horse or pony shot! We never used the Term farrier until the 1980s. Even the local riding school said blacksmith. This was Lancashire near Oldham in the 1960 s and 70 s.
 
Going back to farriers/ blacksmiths. I used to ring Paul Jackson,who I think is now still living and in his 80s, and say something like,hi is that the blacksmith? My pony needs new shoes can you come and shoe him? Or take the pony to Oak hill riding school in the school holidays for the Guilfoils father and son to shoe. Only had a set of shoes every twelve weeks or so as no one had much money. Rode in a headcollar or bridle as no money for a saddle. As kids we had great fun in the holidays being out all day with the pony,me and my friends. I remember Paul Jackson turning up with a big sticker along his van windscreen saying Registered Farrier. Farrier was a term in books and for posh people as far as we were concerned. Registration of Farriers had just come in ,was it 1976? We had to start calling them farriers then. We thought it very grand. Just makes me think how times have changed,there were no horse dentists or physios or bean people. Yet the ponies seemed to do ok and have less injuries and problems. I think they got more exercise,no trailers which we called horseboxes btw. Had to ride to local shows,ride for miles and return home dirty and tired but happy.
 
Oh my gosh head stalls! That’s what my dad calls them! I’ve spent 30 years resisting the urge to correct him 😭
Whereas to me a headstall is the part of a bridle which the broadband fits onto. I'm pretty sure that somewhere I've got a book with a diagram of parts of a bridle with the headstall marked. It seems to be called the headpiece these days.
 
I've tried googling what plaiting the straw bed means, with no success. Would someone please explain how one does that/what it looks like? I've even worked with horses and have no idea what it means.
Straw used to be a lot longer than it is now. You plaited it to keep the front edge neat and stop it falling out of the door.
 
Wouldn’t everyone “quarter” any way in winter especially with a clipped horse but not maybe know that it was called that.
I wouldn’t ever say I quarter my horse but I certainly keep the bits I can covered when it’s cold .
The chilled water thing, I would have had absolutely NO idea it meant chill taken off! In fact I’d have thought the very opposite 🤦‍♀️
 
Straw used to be a lot longer than it is now. You plaited it to keep the front edge neat and stop it falling out of the door.

In the very olden days ( older than me even!) houses used to have straw laid on the floor and would put a piece of wood in the doorway to stop the straw from coming out of their homes.

This is how entrance doors got a 'thresh hold'
 
In the very olden days ( older than me even!) houses used to have straw laid on the floor and would put a piece of wood in the doorway to stop the straw from coming out of their homes.

This is how entrance doors got a 'thresh hold'
All my stables have a piece of scaffold board across them. Not only does it help prevent the bedding getting dragged out of the stable, it also helps cut down draughts coming in under the bottom door.
 
A friend of mine from work is living in Birmingham, although originally from Pakistan, and is desperate to learn to ride. So for secret santa I send him a 2nd hand, very old horse riding manual that I thought had nice diagrams in it as well as basic instruction, this thread has made me wonder about the terminology he may learn and what a surprise it could be for the instructor when he books in for lessons? :D

I did know quartering and 'thatching', from BHS traditionally trained instructors I had as a kid.
 
OK, showing my age here 🤣 - all of the following were part of my childhood - quartering, thatching under a string vest sweat rug, whisping, strapping, boiling linseed for bran mashes, feeding bruised oats, only wormer available came in a packet of granules, jute stable rugs, stiff canvas NZ rugs, sausage boots, exercise bandages over gamgee for Hunter Trials - the list goes on...........
 
OK, showing my age here 🤣 - all of the following were part of my childhood - quartering, thatching under a string vest sweat rug, whisping, strapping, boiling linseed for bran mashes, feeding bruised oats, only wormer available came in a packet of granules, jute stable rugs, stiff canvas NZ rugs, sausage boots, exercise bandages over gamgee for Hunter Trials - the list goes on...........

Had forgotten wormers in granules. I used to sew the edges of gamgee to go under exercise bandages to make it last longer.
 
OK, showing my age here 🤣 - all of the following were part of my childhood - quartering, thatching under a string vest sweat rug, whisping, strapping, boiling linseed for bran mashes, feeding bruised oats, only wormer available came in a packet of granules, jute stable rugs, stiff canvas NZ rugs, sausage boots, exercise bandages over gamgee for Hunter Trials - the list goes on...........
Sadly I remember all of these. Frisk wormer granules were bright blue as were the bottles of colic drench.
 
This thread is fascinating, though I think some of it may be regional linguistic differences versus historic....I just thought set fair was a northern term. But to me farriers shoe horses and only shoe horses; blacksmiths are metal workers but may have historically made horseshoes, before farrier became a legally protected title.

When plaitinh beds was it done with the pitchfork or hands? That I hadn't heard of but it sounds genius for stopping mess
 
I always find the halter conversation fascinating.

I have used halters since forever. Proper rope halters.

Perhaps it is more common in native pony circles?


We don't have native ponies ( well we did have a Welsh Sec A yrs ago) but I much prefer to use a rope halter for everything except tying up to travel. I rarely if ever tie up for anything else. I much prefer the control that a halter gives you and I don't mean thise Dually things which are made of thin twine. Ours are more like cow halters.
 
For my first 15 years of horse ownership my blacksmith was also my farrier. Horses/ponies taken to the forge would stand in the road and the place was full of metal work of all kinds, from machinery parts to fancy gates. He was never called farrier by anyone local, always a blacksmith. It was a fantastic place with a telephone. Anyone passing in the street would answer it and fetch him from the house if it was necessary to have him speak, otherwise the message was written on the chalk board or relayed to him by mouth. There was always a gaggle of old chaps sitting around on drums or anvils, having a chin wag and warm up near the forge.

The ponies were ridden to the forge for hot shoeing or someone collected the farrier in their car for cold shoeing. He had a ready made set of shoes for each animal, labelled on a rack at the back of the forge, each one hand made and I cannot remember any cold shoes not fitting, he did not have a fancy mobile forge, only a small anvil and big hammer.

He started me off by having me remove shoes from a pony while he shod the rest. Once I could have that done before he had finished, he taught me how to trim the feet. I had got fast enough at that so he said that the next visit he would show me how to nail on the shoes. Unfortunately he had a heart attack and had to stop work. A few months later the farrier act came in. Apparently if I had nailed a shoe on with him I could have had grandfather rights to shoe. As it is the only shoes I ever nailed on were in Spain, when I was working at a trekking place one summer.
 
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 must admit that while I know the difference between a halter and a headcollar I tend to use the terms interchangeably.
 
Ooooh yes! I remember this, a very sharp reprimand if a nice fresh bed failed that test. 😊
I bedded on straw until a few months ago and having put the bed down I would walk round the stable and have an experimental stab with the pitchfork to check it was deep enough.
I probably look like a dog circling in their bed before they lie down!
 
The point being we called the farrier "blacksmith". I'm phoning the blacksmith to come and shoe the pony. Related to this we never said the pony was "shod". Always "shoed" . this is because everyone thought we were saying "shot" thought we'd had our horse or pony shot! We never used the Term farrier until the 1980s. Even the local riding school said blacksmith. This was Lancashire near Oldham in the 1960 s and 70 s.
I still say blacksmith quite often but Im old 🤣
 
OK, showing my age here 🤣 - all of the following were part of my childhood - quartering, thatching under a string vest sweat rug, whisping, strapping, boiling linseed for bran mashes, feeding bruised oats, only wormer available came in a packet of granules, jute stable rugs, stiff canvas NZ rugs, sausage boots, exercise bandages over gamgee for Hunter Trials - the list goes on...........
I remember Equizole wormer they were like pony nuts and came in a tub.
 
How about vinegar and whiting mixed to make a cooling paste for tendons. Spreading kaolin poultice out of a tin on to brown paper and then heating it up under the grill! You really had to be careful the paper didn't catch fire and then you had to wait until the kaolin was cool enough to put on the wound.
 
Top