What were horses like in the 70's?

Horses were pretty much the same!
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I think there are a lot of rose-tinted glasses being worn here. Horses nowadays have never had such a huge range of specialist medical, behavioural and dental knowledge and experience available to them. Tack is more varied and comfortable for both horse and rider. Rugs in the 70s were a nightmare; the big canvas ones weighed a ton and rarely dried out over winter. Why is it benefical to have a smaller range of feeds? Nobody has to buy the ludicrous mixes (dressage mix?!), but it is useful to have choice. Saddles were often made of rock, or that is how it felt to sit on them. All the innovations we have today have been brought about because there is a real or perceived need for them; nobody is compelled to use them, and anybody can keep their horse as they would have done 30 years ago if they so wish. The difference now is, it would be their choice.
 
I'm too young for all this but I've heard all these kind of stories from my mum who had her first pony in the seventies, and I've still got her old pony club manual from that time which I love to delve into sometimes. It's like looking into another world!

We still go by a lot of the principles in said pony club manual but with a few modern mollycoddles added in - modern rugs, EDTs and saddle fitters come to mind as improvements. We still feed straights (chaff and oats, no mixes!) including boiled barley or bran mashes after a hard day's hunting, and I have been known to thatch a horse after hunting to help them dry off (you ask a kid under 18 what thatching is, guarantee you'll get a blank look!)
 
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horses/ponies had far less "stress" type of injuries, weren't schooled to the point of boredom, fed to insanity, imprisoned for days on end because "it's raining", over rugged to the point of cruelty, rarely had "behaviour" issues, ...were just horses and ponies really..



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I had a pony in the 90's and he never suffered a stress injury, schooled once a week, was feed chaff and nuts his whole life, only spend a few days in the stable due to an abcess and had no behavioural issues. The horse I have now in 2008 and can be descibed in the exact same way.

IMO things haven't really changed it just more people talk about their experiences with horses and with more 'novice' people keeping horses than in the 70's welfare issues can be more of a problem e.g over rugging, keeping in, over feeding, parelli.
 
What a great post happy memories!
Bought my first pony in the mid 70's a Welshy straight off the mountains and through the sales, taken home in the back of a black cab with the window open.....got straight on him and away to go £90 with tack. My grandfathr gave up smoking to pay his 'tack' not livery.
Lived out no rugs, thick heavy mud scraped off at weekends where the tack went so I could ride. Had to lead him out for a hack and ride back if I wanted to go out by myself cos he always napped. Roads were really quiet good thing I was only nine.
Hacked to blacksmith, shows and hunting.
Home made jumps, supermarket trolleys and oil drums made good wings!!
Riding bareback all summer and jumping in rope halters, no headcollars around then
No Health and Safety although I must say I do have my old 'hard' hat which nicely folds in two!!!
Moved onto a bigger pony horrible jute rugs with surcingles, had to fold up extra blankets underneath. Green or blue canvas turnout rugs forever leaking. Stalls at night deep straw beds just brush the muck out from behind!
Parents hired a horse box with 4 others from the yard once a year to go to the county show.
No made up feeds loved using oats barley bran sugerbeet etc.
Long hot summers carrying water around the fields as no piped water. Cold wet winters with loads of mud but no mud fever on legs but did get 'weatherbeat' now rainscald on ponies back ends.
Even used hand clippers one winter.
Happy times far less traffic and far less stress.
 
don't know about the 70's as i was born in '79, but in 2000 i used to take a 4 year old TB down to the shop and tie her up whilst i grabbed shopping. i would keep a headcollar on under her bridle and carry a leadrope.
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Ooh I am enjoying this thread soooo much

I rode at a riding school and helped everyweekend in return for free rides.

We used to catch the ponies and ride barback to the yard, we used to canter barback in headcollars.

We used to hack for miles and no-one knew where we were. we used to canter along the grass verges of the A roads jumping the little drainage ditches.

I used to love stubble burning time - we used to gallop across the stubble while it was still burning - through the flames!

Sometimes I wish we could turn the clock back - my daughter has a pony but we don't have quite so much 'fun' with him as I did when I was a child.
 
I tend to agree with Sooty on this. I started riding in 1967 and got my first pony in 1972, £50 untouched colt which I was riding after two weeks! I cringe now when I think of how we used to shut the horses in all winter, no turnout till Spring, no horse dentist, back person or saddle fitter. Worming was recognised but not really bothered with. On the plus side, we all had great fun riding over any field, if the gates were open it was an invitation, cantering on every available blade of grass, jumping ditches etc. I remember Bloom shampoo and Extra Tail fly spray and the pride of wearing a yellow polo jumper and yellow string gloves with my cheap black jacket and putty coloured jodphurs!
 
I used to hack to Pony Club, shows and hunting, I didn't do a dressage test until I was an adult.

Only the ones "in the team" ever did dressage. The Pony Club also gave a rosette to who ever had riddent he furthurest to a rally! I also remembe riding through the middle of our local city to a Horseman's Sunday once, and to a show.

Our ponies never got too fat and we never worried about laminitis, that was for fat ponies that did nothing. We used to take them out to eat the verges in the summer.

There was a lot less traffic about in those days, and fewer ponies of course, hardly any livery stables except for hunter livery. If you didn't have any land at home, like us, you had to rent a field from a local farmer, or in our case, a doctor who had a field attached to his house he didin't use. So that meant cycling to the ponies every night with a bucket on the handlebars and the saddle on the handlebars at the weekend. Never see that now!

I think horses get more understanding now, if they are naughty they are looked over for pain issues first, not just a harsher bit banged in. The saddles could be quite grim, just look at some of those old narrow saddles that we used.

We also used to bed them on straw and feed them hay, bran, salt and oats if needed, nothing else.
 
Forgotten to add about chaff-cutters! We didn't buy bags of ready made chaff in those days, it had to be cut from hay using a hand operated chaff cutter - that was a boring job to do!
 
Don't know about the 70's as I wasn't born till '83 but when I was younger me and my mate used to go on hacks all over the place and explore. Never into towns though and avoided A roads. Open gate meant we could gallop in the field and we cantered on every available grass verge. Used to hack out all day and to local shows.

Now it seems I can't find anywhere to get a canter let alone a gallop
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Woods have been closed off apparently too thanks to some irresponsible riders
 
<font color="blue"> What interesting posts. I got my 1st pony in 1996, I was 13yrs old and she was a 13.2hh 2yr old New Forest (I still have her now and will always have her!).
I grew up in Milton Keynes. My friend and I used to go through McDonalds &amp; Burger King drive through and were aways stopping at shops for sweeties and drinks - as we used to be out hacking in the summer holidays from 8-9am til it got dusk. Sometimes my dad would come down to the field at 10pm to see where I was as it was getting dark.

My NF always lived out, she had a rug in bad weather. I fed her only in the winter - hay and H&amp;P cubes &amp; chaff. We had an old Rice trailer, my mare hated it so much I used to travel with her in the trailer! - as it used to rattle so much. I was just so happy to have a pony I did not want for all the fancy trimmings I have now!
She now has a stable and she seems to look forward to coming in with the others on horrible winters evening for her dinner and a nice dry bed. We now have a new trailer and she travels happily in this! She has a few more pretty rugs - I love buying rugs and goodies! I still feed her exactly the same - why change something thats not broke?!

Anyway - this is supposed to be about the 70's, not 90's!</font>
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A lot of nostalgia here. Remember that horses today have much better fitting saddles, dental care, nutritional awareness, veterinary care, etc. I do think that some horses are over coddled today, but in general I think I would rather be a horse today than in 1970......
 
first pony was a section C but we also ended up with a rescue exmoor. neither were rugged and both were fed nuts, chaff (we cut our own), bran, sugar beet and in really cold weather boiled barley and linseed twice a week. (70s)
third pony was TB x Newfie and he didnt winter out well so wa sin and had a trace clip.used to hack to shows and meets and hack back.(early 80s)

Funny what you remember, horses round where I was consisted of natives and hunters, the occasional cob and anglos. also a fair amout of TBs. coloured cobs couldnt be given away and continental WBs hadnt been invented yet for mere mortals..
 
I can remember the troubles I had getting the thibendazole worming pony cubes down the darlings gullets, mix them with spillers and they would be left in the licked bowls.
My first pony was an exmoor then I moved onto a welsh, both much loved but with an evil side to them. I have never forgiven Kitty for eating my kayli, complete with bag and liquorice stick.
 
My sister and I got our first horse in 1975, 12 year old ride and drive, traffic proof is not sufficient to describe him
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He always was hacked to the farriers, where we ate fish and chips, with him tied up and then hacked back. My sister once hacked him over to the doctors and left him tied to a lamp post while she had her appointment!
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So that meant cycling to the ponies every night with a bucket on the handlebars and the saddle on the handlebars at the weekend. Never see that now!

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Oh gosh, yes! How I remember those days. I kept my feed in our back garden shed (Crushed barley, Spillers H&amp;P cubes, hay chaff and sugar beet, with Codlivine supplement which came in little jute bags in those days). I used to burn linseed in my Mum's saucepans regularly, as well
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I'd make the feeds up each morning and bike them over to the horses. Buckets swinging from each handle bar. Bet I was a whole lot fitter in those days!
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I rode at a riding school and helped everyweekend in return for free rides.

We used to catch the ponies and ride barback to the yard, we used to canter barback in headcollars.

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Yep. And never with a hard hat on! I did this too early on, as did many pony-mad kids who's parents weren't rich enough to buy a pony or horse orientated enough to be bothered to.

Can you imagine health and safety rules letting kids do that now???? No sireee! Shame, as I can remember it being the complete highlight of my life, at one stage. Sad eh?!
 
Eeeeeek. People talking about the 90's as if it were 'olden days' back then. You're making me feeling old! Stop it all of you!!!!
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I was just thinking the same thing as you!

It's all relative though. Wonder what people will be saying about TODAY'S equines in the year 2030?! Will it be good stuff or bad, I wonder?
 
The way H &amp; S goes we won't be riding by then - far too dangerous!
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I couldn't believe it when I found out the riding school I used to go to has stopped hacking for kids due to insurance reasons.
 
This is great - cant add anything because it is all spot on as far as I can remember and boy it has brought the memories flooding back. 10hh shetland cross bought for £100 in 1981 when I was 8 (bit later than some responding here) and then a 13hh dartmoor cross in 1985 for £500 but it was still the same attitudes then. My, how things are different now!
 
this post has made for brilliant reading!

i do think, that with the current economic climate, that some things may well end up reverting a little to the 1970s ways...

even when I learnt to ride in the early nineties is very different to how things are now. I am met with shock when people realise I have ridden 5 miles to a show!
 
Wow, what an amazing repsonse, I think there's a book in the making here!!

Ditto the comment above about the credit crunch, there's a lot to be said for keeping it simple. We've been battling with some behavioural "issues" with our cob mare (napping, bucking, bunny hops etc), doing ground work and schooling (with just a little improvement) but having read everything here, I think we just need to bite the bullet and get her doing some serious hacking (might even hack her to the shops in morning for the paper if I can get someone on a bike to tag along to hold her, not sure I would get away with tying her to the lampost outside!!).

Thanks so much to everyone who replied, it's been very enlightening, perhaps if we all took a bit from the past we could overcome any problems we might have (instead of referring to a DVD!)

Love Jules x
 

i still cycle to my ponies, saddle and bucket on handlebars, still have and use some of the same gear i used back then. never moved on to horses stayed with ponies.
 
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