The Good Old Days

Petalpoos

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Not sure if this has already been posted, but just saw this on FB and it gave me a chuckle. Seems to be a collection of all the other posts we have had on here that appeal to us oldies. Probably mystifying to anyone under 40. :D


The good old days

All kids rode in a snaffle because usually that is what your parent [mother] had in their day and they had survived so you had to - D ring, eggbutt, or loose ring. If your pony was a shit and you had a kind parent or one with money, you might be allowed a kimblewick or pelham. Double bits were for adults out hunting or show ponies only.
Rubber reins were coveted - hunting a pony with shaving foam sweat on his neck meant plain reins were as useful as cooked noodles. Plaited leather reins were just as bad and ripped between your fingers.
Leather girths were coveted just as much - choices were string or the white candlewick girths which would split at inappropriate moments.
Coloured browbands were naff - the plastic ones for riding schools and the velvet ones for show ponies. Brass was for heavy horses.
There were four types of rug - canvas NZ, jute, wool with a coloured edging and initials for best and a sweat rug that looked like something Rab C Nesbitt wore that you used when thatching. Then there were blankets, usually nasty and itchy unless you were rich and could afford a Witney blanket
Every NZ rug hung to one side within five minutes of your pony being turned out.
There were four types of clip - trace, blanket, hunter or full. No one asked what type of clip suited their pony, ponies were clipped to suit the level of work they were doing.
No one wanted a coloured hairy, it usually meant your parents knew nothing and had bought your pony from the local riding school and no one wanted a riding school pony.
Everyone plaited to go hunting.
The amount of fences you jumped out hunting and stayed in the saddle was far more important than if you saw a fox.
Ponies lived out in just a NZ rug, even if clipped, nothing up their necks.
Feed was natural - oats, barley, wheat, sugar beet and bran then came in pony nuts which were great for rattling in the bottom of a bucket and a countrymix with yummy locust beans.
You made your own chop and warmed the molasses on the Rayburn.
You thought you were a nutritionist if you added garlic to your pony's feed.
Tesco own brand vegetable cooking oil was added to feeds to give a shine to the coat.
If you went hunting, chances are your pony had a warm mash with a bottle of Guinness and a raw egg mixed into it for a pick me up. Chances are that you had the dried up remains of whatever your family had at lunchtime.
Linseed was boiled and fed to everything to make the coat shine.
Grooming by torchlight was a skill.
Baling twine was a Godsend
Your pony probably knew all the top 20 hits.
Everyone entered the yearly WH Smith Win A Pony competition.
If your pony went lame, the farrier was called before the vet and usually cured pony.
No one's pony had ulcers.
We all knew someone who knew someone whose pony had had colic but none of us actually had that pony.
Fat ponies lived on thin air and no one said how cruel because there was no grass in their paddock.
Boiled spud peelings and other veggie peelings were added to feeds as a treat.
Wormers came in powder form - most ponies knew when it was added to their feed and left the feed uneaten and themselves unwormed. It was considered the norm to mix the wormer into a paste, spread in a jam sandwich and feed it to your pony.
Bread was not considered bad for your pony or even odd to feed your pony.
Winning at your local show in front of your school friends gave you rock star status until the next show.
Hacking to a show was considered normal. Sometimes your parents would leave a trailer at a show with your grooming kit, picnic and a picnic for your pony because your pony would not load so you hacked anyway. ;)
You turned out your pony to the best of your abilities - always plaited with clean tack. Tack was always correct, if you used a curb chain on a pelham/double then you also had a lip strap.
Coloured nylon tack was laughed at and considered townie.
Plain leather with just a stable rubber under your saddle or a plain numnah meant you knew your stuff - coloured numnahs, reins, etc meant you were a townie or came from a riding school.
Stockholm tar was brushed into the bottom of the hoof and across the frog every night.
Everyone had gone to school with purple spray stains on their fingers.
When the white wound powder finally came in black, we got excited.
All buckets were black and ridged until the rubber allegedly indestructible feed bowls came out - also in black.
A bright yellow builder's bucket meant my pony snorted and stood as far away from it as possible and meant I had to walk to the end of the field in the hissing rain to catch him.
Long leather boots were added to every Christmas list - rubber ones never shone as much.
Christmas lists always consisted of things for the pony - bridle, bit, rug, etc.
We didnt wear hats and back protectors hadnt been invented.
We went out riding without a phone and couldnt tell anyone where we were going as chances are we didnt know ourselves, we were just going out riding.
As long as we were back for meal times and before it was dark, our parents didnt worry.
Ponies knew their way home if you parted company.
Everyone had cleaned their tack while listening to Bohemian Rhapsody at number one in the charts.
 

Hollychops

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Remember so many of those. I didnt have a horse until i was 20, but they were still relevant, and i still have a ridged black bucket that is now about 25 years old and the handle is still intact. (they forgot the bit about the handle coming off and having to make a new one out of baler twine which hurt like hell when you had to carry the bucket full of water!!) :D
 

Gloi

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We all had those flat half panelled saddles for our ponies. Rock hard and uncomfortable for both pony and rider.
Nobody had headcollars, we all had rope halters and knew how to make our own from a piece of rope.
Nobody knew about Cushings, we just thought old ponies got hairy, thin and saggy bellied, then were shot.
Sump oil & creosote was a good treatment for sweet itch :eek: if it didn't sort it, knacker man again.
As a treat we were allowed to go to the beach, 10 ponies in a cattle wagon driven by an old bloke with a penchant for teenage girls.
 

Gloi

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I remember in handy pony one of the things we had to do was drag a sack of straw by a rope from one place to another in the ring. Some ponies really objected and every so often there would be a shout of 'drop the rope' as the pony galloped off across the showground, sack flying behind it.
 

The Fuzzy Furry

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We all had those flat half panelled saddles for our ponies. Rock hard and uncomfortable for both pony and rider.
Nobody had headcollars, we all had rope halters and knew how to make our own from a piece of rope.
Nobody knew about Cushings, we just thought old ponies got hairy, thin and saggy bellied, then were shot.
Sump oil & creosote was a good treatment for sweet itch :eek: if it didn't sort it, knacker man again.
As a treat we were allowed to go to the beach, 10 ponies in a cattle wagon driven by an old bloke with a penchant for teenage girls.
Still got a half panel saddle lined with serge in my tack store!
Also still have rope halters dotted round the yard, for turning out and bringing in.
 

Errin Paddywack

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We did that as Ride and Run. My sister was brilliant at it. Had a pony who hated being lead and always tried to take chunks out of the person leading him. Luckily she could run fast, needed to with jaws snapping behind her. Saddling up race got banned as too dangerous due to over competitiveness. I loved gymkhana.
 

Keith_Beef

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If you went hunting, chances are your pony had a warm mash with a bottle of Guinness and a raw egg mixed into it for a pick me up.

I'd accept that for breakfast.


Baling twine was a Godsend

It still is. At the TREC competition yesterday a girl came over from another van asking if we had any to spare...

Bread was not considered bad for your pony or even odd to feed your pony.

Where I ride, there's a big bag full of bread that's gone hard (I think the baker gives the yard yesterday's unsold bread for free) for us to give to the horses as a treat.
 

D66

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I must be older than you. My ponies didnt ever have rugs, not even NZ ones, they weren't clipped either. No one's were clipped unless you hunted. We all wore useless hats held on with a piece of black knicker elastic, huge beige riding macs with leg straps and string gloves.
I didnt have any rug until I got a half TB horse.
 

Tardebigge

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My ponies didn't have rugs either. They lived out, unclipped and grew terrific coats. You just brushed the mud off where the tack went and picked out feet, otherwise you'd be there all day. Of course, they used to start sweating buckets pretty quickly and you had to make sure they had at least cooled off before you got back, but usually they got turned out still wet with sweat - and it never seemed to do them any harm. Living out, they only had hay and what grass there was in the winter; no hard feed at all. Laminitis was not common! (nor was colic, as a pp says).
Mind you, I'm so old I remember my parents paid 2/6 (12 and a half p) in summer and 5/- (25p) a week in winter for grass livery. A set of shoes was 30/- (£1.50). My father used to moan about the cost of ponies all the time...
 

Smitty

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We all had those flat half panelled saddles for our ponies. Rock hard and uncomfortable for both pony and rider.
Nobody had headcollars, we all had rope halters and knew how to make our own from a piece of rope.
Nobody knew about Cushings, we just thought old ponies got hairy, thin and saggy bellied, then were shot.
Sump oil & creosote was a good treatment for sweet itch :eek: if it didn't sort it, knacker man again.
As a treat we were allowed to go to the beach, 10 ponies in a cattle wagon driven by an old bloke with a penchant for teenage girls.

No amount of 'Likes' is good enough for this! Oh the cattle truck! I think as a 10/11 year old bystander this is where most of my sex education came from.

Ours was driven by a 25 year old (I suppose in hindsight) version of the randy milkman on Father Ted (was it Pat Mustard?) who would often bring his employer's stallion along to do gymkana with. I honestly can't think which got serviced the most. They were both very dashing and I was most impressed by the cool manner in which it was executed.

I think the trip there and back always cost £1.2/6d. I have no idea if it included 'extras'☺

Who remembers drum jumping? I excelled at this, purely because I cheated.
 

Gloi

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No amount of 'Likes' is good enough for this! Oh the cattle truck! I think as a 10/11 year old bystander this is where most of my sex education came from.

Ours was driven by a 25 year old (I suppose in hindsight) version of the randy milkman on Father Ted (was it Pat Mustard?) who would often bring his employer's stallion along to do gymkana with. I honestly can't think which got serviced the most. They were both very dashing and I was most impressed by the cool manner in which it was executed.
I think the trip there and back always cost £1.2/6d. I have no idea if it included 'extras'☺
Who remembers drum jumping? I excelled at this, purely because I cheated.

:D When we went to the beach I think it was either £1 or £1 5/- a pony, 3 girls got to squash in the cab and the rest climbed on the luton. Not sure which was worst, sitting in the cab with his pervy talk or gripping on for dear life on the luton hoping not to fall into the mass of ponies . Loved the beach though, it was manic with all our galloping ponies! He'd sometimes also take ponies to a local show for the same fee.
We did drum jumping too, but I was't very good at it.
 

SEL

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I did have a hat - very pretty blue one with a ribbon and no chin strap. Lasted me for years, but that's probably because it never stayed on when I fell off.

I can remember the first time I saw a pair of coloured jods - navy - on another girl. I was so jealous! All my stuff was hand me downs. I'm pretty sure it was wellies and cords for a long time. No photos from back then which is sad.
 

Errin Paddywack

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I remember the first pair of stretch jodhs I owned. Nearly got jumped off the first time I wore them. Dreadfully slippy. Think I sewed some wash leather onto the legs patches to sort that. We used to hack miles to gymkhanas, compete all day and hack home again after. Exhausts me just thinking about it now. Same for hunting. Our ponies always looked well and were never lame so we must have been doing something right.
 

SpringArising

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I first had ponies in the very early 2000s, so not even that long ago. But things have changed so much even since then.

There were loads of shows with a bit of everything - dressage, clear round, 'proper showjumping', gymkhana, equitation classes, best turned out etc. It seems like everything is a show of its own now and much more serious. I remember if you wanted to check show times/itinerary you had to get a print-out leaflet.

Everyone had those black buckets - I don't even think coloured tubtrugs were a thing back then?

The only coloured numnahs people had were dark blue, dark green, purple or red.

DIY livery with a stable and facilities cost £15 a week.
 

The Fuzzy Furry

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I first had ponies in the very early 2000s.....

Everyone had those black buckets - I don't even think coloured tubtrugs were a thing back then?

The only coloured numnahs people had were dark blue, dark green, purple or red.

DIY livery with a stable and facilities cost £15 a week.
I remember getting a blue water bucket in 1973 when we got my 1st pony, I felt so proud, I treasured it :) (yes, it was a std water bucket, most had black or grey, a few had the new coloured ones then)
Livery was £5 a week, stable available for sickness at £1 a night to include straw and a haynet
 

Jill's Gym Karma

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I was a pony-mad but pony-less girly swot in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then knowledge was obtained from fortnightly Horse & Pony magazine (great posters), and whatever horsey books your school and local library had. The horsey non-fiction was shelved by fishing as I recall. I remember reading about azoturia, spavins and splints but when I started reading this forum a couple of years ago I had to look up Cushings and had no idea ulcers were so prevalent.

I've also had to look up PRE and ISH and the various European warmblood acronyms. Back then people by and large rode "ponies", there were very few pure-breeds of any variety around.

I recall plain jockey skull caps being cooler than velvet or silk-covered caps. Jodhpur boots were cool, and then they weren't again. I spent days staring covetously at riding gear in the catalogues that occasionally came free with H&P, but got two pairs of jodhs second hand that my mum saw advertised in the newsagent. My Nan knitted me a bright yellow polo neck with a horse on it which I LOVED.

I'm sure there used to be more horsey sport on the telly; racing on both BBC and C4, and much more show jumping and eventing.
 

humblepie

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I was sorting out some stuff the other day and came across a pair of tendon boots my father had the local saddler make for our 11.3 jumping pony - she'd had an issue and he wanting to just make sure her legs were protected. Posh pony! My father bought her after she had run away with a girl at a pony club rally and she turned into a fab jumping pony. Used to jump the 14.2 classes at the local shows despite her diminuative size. The 12.2 jumping pony who wasn't mine but I had for jumping used to have gorse hung up in his stable to help his breathing. The ponies had to be taken to the farrier. As Jill above said, HOYS was on TV, RIHS used to get shown, Hickstead etc.
 

Petalpoos

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It was so hard to get information. think I knew every page of the BHS Manual of Horsemanship, but mostly I read books about horse management written in the 20s and 30s that were given to me, full of insane "When I was in the army I saw more than one chap dragged by his horse..." type stories and useful hints for managing your groom. o_O
 
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