whay did you do with your horses when you were young but wouldnt do now?

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Rosiejazzandpia

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As in title really.
Know lots of people would never do half the things they did with ponies as a child that you wouldnt do now?
I used to ride a little welsh sect A with my brother riding him at the same time!
Also used to ride round the field on him practising 'circus tricks' such as trying to stand up or lay down on him :)
Used to get my brother to lay under a cross pole and jump him! All without a saddle and bridle or any form of hat. And pony wasnt even ours- he belonged to a neighbours spoilt child who never wanted to ride him!
Only thing I used to worry about was falling off and ripping my jeans because then my mum would know what we had been up to! And this was only 10 years ago!
 
Unfortunately, most of this is what I am called upon to do with our horses now - after 45 years (but it's still more fun than boring old competition stuff - which we also occasionally do too).
 
Ride in headcollar and sitting on horse when lying down and asking them to get up (with head collar). A couple of years ago I decided to get on bareback and forgot how slippery a horse was! I promptly fell off and laid on the driveway looking up at the blue sky highly embarrassed. (It was near a road and motorists were laughing...none stopped to see if i was ok as they were too busy laughing).
 
Jump anything and everything - if it was under 4'6 we'd jump it. Pony was a fabby jumper and SO clever, getting us out of problems I'd got us into.

Possibly the oddest thing - one of those playground rides with a sort of rocking horse with maybe 8 seats on it. Got some friends to occupy the end seats and rock it as high as possible whilst pony and I jumped it.
 
:eek: omg loads .. lol .. now i look back i am amazed i am still here .. we used to go swimming in the sea with no thought of currents, (best fun) cantering on any grass verge we could find, no matter how busy the road .. no high viz and no hat!!! jump anything and everything that was in our path .. my horse was my total best friend and we done everything .. i wish i could go back in time and have some more fun and hugs off him .. and to apologise for all the danger i put us both in, without a second thought .. the joys of being young .. but tbh the youngsters of today will never know half the fun i had .. H&S rules .. rightly or wrongly.

and it was all bareback, and mostly with just a headcollar .. oops!
 
Me an my 2 brothers sitting bareback on one of the cobs an going for a gallop down thr stubble field about 5 at the time haha ! Great fun
 
Lots of things!

I taught myself to ride a loan pony bareback with no headcollar, she was a local trekking pony we had our first winter at the cottage, then our own horses arrived the next winter.

I used to jump on Seren bareback with no saddle,bridle or headcollar, or hat :eek: while she grazed in our field!! What a mare she was bless her, our TB mare Gemma would let you do the same actually. I would even do a 180 turn and rest my head on her bum!
I used to ride her bareback at all speeds over various terrain without a worry, and sometimes do no hands!! :eek:

I am sure there was plenty more I did that I would not do now

You would not catch me doing that now, I am 31 and now a chicken by comparison. I would do bareback however if my back was not utter rubbish
 
We were reckless, jumping bareback with no hat in a field full of loose horses, sitting backwards and going as fast as you could without falling off, trying to teach the ponies to rear, bareback racing we did it all and used to fall off all the time wouldnt have the balls to do any of it now though, oh to be a kid again and have no fear:eek:
 
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how many rules am I breaking here? I considered this a good day as I'd bothered to put a bridle on :cool:

TBH, I still do most of these things, I just tend to stick a hat on now :p

similarly:

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I used to do loads of silly things on my little pony without caring... Even right up until I lost her in July... Was 19 and still reckless :D

Jumping on her in the field while grazing, jumping anything in sight out hacking, galloping/cantering wherever possible, lying down on her whilst riding bareback, 'planking' :D , I have a video somewhere of me jumping her 1.10 bareback in a headcollar :eek: too scary! :eek: Ponies are just too much fun... if my baby shetties grow big enough, I might even get to re-live childhood :D haha
 
Oh my life - where to start ??

flat out galloping bareback everywhere -
jumping bareback :eek:
jumping a solid cc fence which was about 4ft - still cannot believe we did that
cross country (ok, not very well)- spent a lot of time sitting around at tweesledown watching !

My horses in my younger days were TB's - then I injured my back, and discovered COBS !!!! and have never looked back. I have fallen off both my cobs more than I ever did my TB's mind you. :o
 
Try and swap ponies at a gallop... We were little hooligans- we had permission to use a lot of the fields around us, and we'd hit them and just go hell for leather wooping and doing war cries. Our ponies were saints not to turn into lunatics! My sister used to go out on her 14hh cob, and jump the big haybales and make courses of them. Pony never said no, and it did help him become amazingly quick thinking and good at seeing a fence and just jumping. But it scares us now- if he'd hit one, they could have easily been killed.
 
northernsoul said:
er..... race bareback in field along the fence alongside passing traffic :p
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ha ha .. i done that .. i used to love racing the cars!! lol!! ... ooo and then all the other horses would stampede behind us .. can you imagine if a kid today posted they done any of this stuff .. :eek: they would be soooo shouted and yelled at .. yet we look back and laugh. :o
 
Guilty of a few things.. riding my old horse with just a head collar or without if no one was watching. canter along grass verges.. go into fields that wasn't on a bridle way:eek: (ssshhh was only 12).. used to try and do stunt riding ie hang off the side or try and vault on.. some times didnt wear a hat.. sit underneath to brush his tummy, no way would i do that now with my mare..

oh also read in a pony magazine that a horse would go out of their way not to stop on you, so used to get my friend to ride my cob whilst i laid on the floor!! think we even got him to trot over me but wasn't brave enough to try anything faster!

just remembered also leave him tied up outside the village shop, so i could pop in for sweets or an icecream in the summer which i then used to share.. the joys of being young and no worries.. wouldn't do that now
 
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I used to lead my pony in and out of the field by wrapping my arm up around under his head and holding his forelock...in fairness, my dad's very horsey friend told me to do it! Pony was a saint...
 
Definitely it would be canter along grass verges of A roads - best ones with the drainage ditches dug as 'jumps' - guessing the speed of cars to then guess how fast we were going!
Not my age that puts me off now but the traffic, it was 20 years ago!
 
Cortez said:
...and we all survived! Something in the eye for all the H&S Nancies out there?
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But some of us did not and that's the paradox we dice with all the time in life.
Personally I think we may be better risk managers by managing more risk when we where young, unaided by our parents.
 
I had a bareback gallop across a field full of horses with no hat and just a headcollar.
Im alive, was good fun :) children now days dont know what theyre missing. All this capering about has improved my riding drastically :)
 
Loads. Used to jump anything that stayed still long enough, things on playgrounds, picnic tables, benches, any fence with a decent landing etc. Used to trespass too. Admittedly not through farm land, ym would have found out & killed us. But in parks, playgrounds, football pitches, school playing fields, footpaths etc. Like I say if a gate or fence prevented access we just jumped it.
Chasing people. One park always had teens on the swings early evening drinking. Usually got in an argument & then cantered after them. Also we had a mock hunt once, when some adult footballers objected to us jumping the pitch barrier during a match. And got chased by a local angry headmaster several times. We thought it was his own fault for having a lovely field, with a hedge & drop invitingly placed as an entrance. And often went hacking for miles & got lost, we rode through a town centre once, it was getting dark so we trotted down the pavements.
Took a small pony in the newsagents for a bet.
Rode bareback, often in just a headcollar & no hat most of the time. Hacking when I was 16 or so we'd dump our hats round the corner from the yard when we set off.
Once rode with not even a headcollar round a bridleway. Admittedly it was semi private & attached to yard. But it was very early in the morning & pitch black. It was amazing. Often just jumped on my pony in the field, again minus even a headcollar, when the herd went out am while she had a mad blast.
I would also ride anything, anywhere, ym used to deal on a small scale, buying cheap at sales. I used to get on anything he fancied in the car park pre auction, often minus tack & often unbacked to see what they were like. Also whilst there I usually had an offer to ride something small in the ring. Again, got on anything regardless of its behavior or if it had suitable tack, or had been broken. And yms purchases we used to put tack on when home & I'd hack it with a friend & report back on whether I thought it had done anymore than being sat on.
I do tend to wear a hat these days, but still ride her in just a headcollar sometimes, & have a gallop in the field minus any equipment at all. And lots of other non bhs things.
 
Cortez said:
...and we all survived! Something in the eye for all the H&S Nancies out there?
Click to expand...

Wouldn't do any of it on horses, and a lot of it was only safe because we had ponies who were clever, wise to the ways of mad children and no matter how hard we kicked and hollered they weren't going to go faster than they felt safe.

None of my horses have had the same sense of preservation and level of care to their rider...
 
My horse hated hacking alone, but I'd nag and nag at him until we got to the other side of the nature reserve, then let him spin round and gallop all the way home - I loved it :D Wouldn't dream of doing it now :o :eek:
 
Simbacat said:
cantering along the central reservation of the dual carriageway
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ohh wow...."horrified face"!

We used to go to the park on a Saturday morning to jump the benches then back through the Macdonalds drive thru for lunch, burgers for us fries for ponies (we tried hot apple pie at first but found ponies got a bit impatient waiting for the apple to cool!)

My pony never got lame' he cantered through deep mud or on hard ground without a care
 
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