Who remembers the old days?

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Riding out for hours on fat, hairy ponies and sometimes not even having a 10p coin to 'ring home in case of emergencies'!
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I would be gone all day...ride for miles out in the country....no mobiles ( hadn't been invented, or if they had you would have needed a cart to drag it along with you) or money......could have been dead in a ditch and my parents wouldnt have thought to look for me until bed-time!
 
Yep - never really ever used to tell my parents where we were off either, they'd drop us at the stables and generally pick us up a few hours later!

Ooh, but if you didn't have your 10p or needed to call for any reason you could call 100 to get the operator and you could make a reverse charge call! Can you still do that.....?? hehe
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What a brilliant post, I'm loving reading all of these, I remember canvas NZ rugs and jute rugs with a roller. I had a string sweat rug that I used to put straw under as nobody clipped then so we had to dry our ponies off like that!
Saddles were hard horrible things that used to seem to fit everything and saddle fitters didn't exist!
I remember hacking to a show doing about 5 clear rounds, 2 jumping classes, all the gymkhana games and the chase me charlie and hacking home!

My ponies shoes were £11 a set, and I used to get him this wormer that was a pot of powder.
Show entries were about £1 and you won money!
 
Yes apparently they had specially adapted carriages on the trains so that horses could travel.

Her old photos are so funny - remember those jodhpurs with the wide wings?
 
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Opening bales of hay with a length of twine and 'burning' it open..




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We always had to do this at the R/S I helped at - from about 7-7 each weekend and at least 3 nights after school til about 9!

Bareback riding ponies down to the fields - never even occured to us to put our hats on - obviously unattended riding without saddles, just a headcollar and rope, at a faster pace, not in a school was much safer!!

Jumping anything that got in our way down the grass verges.

Those anti-sweat string rugs were about the only essential piece of rugging you needed - had to keep that straw packed up to dry the hairy beasts of somehow!
 
All of the above.
Don't diss the Jute rug I still have one and it will go on if the cold nights come back.
Anti cast rollers I am trying to buy one from MFH09 when we agree a price.
Sweat rugs? Thatching with straw. I do it!
I boil barley in the winter.
I boil linseed in the winter and the summer.
Numnahs? If the saddle fits the numnah stays in the tackroom.
Saddles lined with linen or serge.
Hacking to shows including BSJA ones.
Hunter trialling without back protectors.
Riding without hats
Best game, start bareback, knot reins on ponys neck, set off hell for leather across field removing sweater or coat winner is first one across field swinging sweater or coat round head.
Jumping dry stone walls bareback with a pillion rider.
Watching White Horses and Follyfoot. Ahhhhh.
 
Hacking round the block after school, bareback, no hat and just a headcollar and lead rope fashioned into reins,
going for all day hacks with a rucksack and sharing squashed marmite sandwiches and orange squash with pony,
working all day at riding school each weekend in exchange for a 1 hour lesson,
running to the gate every time I heard a horse hack past,
waving at horses through the car's back window,
thatching my pony and trying to get the straw off the inside of the jute rug for weeks,
falling in love with Mark from Flambards
boiling barley in a slow cooker
soaking a dustbin full of sugar beet and feeding it to my pony over the following weeks - think it was very fermented by the time I finished it....
making haynets from baling string
competing in my school blazer and wellie boots.......
cleaning your canvas NZ with a hose and trying to get it dry for a week!
Cantering down the central mown grass verge of the local dual carriageway.....
having one saddle that went on everything
 
Cantering down the grass verges and jumping the drains
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Hacking out bareback wearing shorts and pony in a headcollar.
Jute rugs, Canvas New Zealands and string sweatrugs that we used to put straw underneath.
No Schools.
Hacking miles to local shows.
Feeding oats, barley, bran, chop.
Washing my pony with soap flakes.
Numnahs/headcollars etc only came in black, brown, white and navy if you were lucky.
No-one had their ponies saddle fitted, teeth done and you only wormed twice a year.
Wearing biege or fawn johds only, oxblood johdpur boots or rubber boots and either puffas or wax jackets that weighed a tonne.
It all makes me feel very old
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We used to use tea towels under saddles instead of numnahs at the riding school I helped at. I also remember the string girths (which got all twisted up in the washing machine).
 
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Cantering down the grass verges and jumping the drains
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Hacking out bareback wearing shorts and pony in a headcollar.


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I love drain jumping :P
And i hacked out bareback in shorts literally all last summer! (not much H&S at our yard!
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It was an ex-polo pony i was 'reschooling' (
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) and whilst chukkas were on we'd just canter around on the lines, hopping the boards
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i swear, it is THE nicest feeling, having bare legs against furry pony back in the sun....... i love summer
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Well I'm only turning 28 this year but have strong memories of the horsey "80's":

1. Wore a red snaffle bit patterned Puffa coat to school and was not bullied! Blue waxed jacket down the horses and mum seemed to live in her brown tweed hacking jacket 24/7!

2. Long rubber boats which were impossible to get off. Vivid picture of Dad yanking our legs out of our hip joints trying to remove the bloody things! Wore them with Tesco shopping bags over socks to keep toes warm in winter!

3. All rugs were NZ's, string sweat rugs or jutes.

4. Remember first jockey skull cap with chin cups and first silk with eyes and ears!!!

5.Carried a pen knife everywhere to open bales, even had it in my school bag!

6.Had days off school to attend Horse sales, horse shows, cutting and producing hay with parents!

7. Black rubber over reach boots which gave you a hernia stretching them over horsey hoofs!

8. Sugarbeet took a year to soak!

9. First body protector was light blue with a huge elastic velcro belt and velcro strap which went between your legs! Belt would rise up and so would leg strap cutting you into two in the saddle!

10. Local shows were entered by local kids with native scruffy ponies, biege jods, school shirts and ties. No imported triple figured horses there!

11. Riding lessons started with circle work and ended in jumping, like it or lump it haha!

12. Horses fed sugar lumps on a regular basis, turned out 24/7, no rugs and never seemed to get ill.

13. Our ponies were walked to the local "pet vet" who vetted all animals then not just "pets" and you would stand outside with a number like those at the meat counter of a supermarket. No horrific call out charges
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14. All tack was decent affordable english leather which you heavy oiled. Late 80's indian leather appeared on the scene and was has hated by my mum!

15. Numnehs were huge and fluffy, brown, white, black in colour and knackered your washing machine when washed along with string girths!!!!

....the good old days huh?
 
Back in the good old days eh!!!
Ive done all of the above things and more
Hacked miles to a show, did about every class possible and hacked home.
I only fed bran, molichop, pony nuts & sugar beet (and soaked enough for half the population to use!! horse never got colic, must of been well fermented)
Then I discovered cooked mixed flake and went on to that.
Paid £5 per week for stable and grazing at a local farm60p for straw £1.50 for hay £12 for a set of shoes
Loved day rides in summer holidays with ruck sacks on tied horses to trees(ouch!) and eat sandwiches
Hired an old Bedford TK cattle truck to go to shows with about 6 ponies crammed in and 6 girls all stood amongst them no partitions.
Galloping on every peice of grass possible,jumping everything in sight.
Green waxed jackets, that smelt.
I once had a little navy quilted coat with a cord collar sure it was a Lavertherm or something, can anyone else remember them?
Candy striped Puffas
Thing is back in those days I had hardley any equipment, proberbly much much idea either, everything was so basic, but I was soooo much more contented with life, didnt worry as much about things going wrong, odd the more I know the more equipment I have the more Iam continually seeking perfection, and so dissatisfied if something goes wrong.
 
Having a skewbald pony in the 70s that rarely got placed in working hunter or best turned out because of his colour. Be worth a fortune now.
Riding bare back out on the roads.

My first Puffa coat - I was so proud :
 
And weren't horses and ponies a lot more straight forward in those days? One rarely heard the horror stories we hear today. Probably because they were common then and lacking all today's high-fallutin' breedin'!
 
Begging to exercise horses at the local gynkhana -I didn't have my own horse until my 16th Birthday,
My brother (age 7)ran underneath a jump (i was supposed to be looking after him)and a horse caught him , He is 41 now and now I still swear I can see the shoe print on his back on a bad day.NO H & S , just carted him back to mum,(no broken bones, he was /is a tough little/big fella) and went back to begging for rides
I still have my Christy Beaufort velvet hat, size 6 7/8, bought it in 1977>then was so suprised when I bought a new one to find i am now 7 1/4 --how, no don't say it-hubby already has
Carrying a homemade halter and sugar lumps , just in case there was a horse i could ride ust around the corner
 
cantering on grass verges in the old days??? i was doing it on monday!!! lol!! i do remeber the old days when nearly everone fell off in gymkahnas and just laurghed about it!!and im only 24!! and i was stuffing straw under a sweet rug the other day!!!but only cos i was in a hurry for boy to cool down and think the old ways are sometimes still the best!!
 
Oh I like these threads
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Riding one riding school pony bareback and leading four others to the fields (down roads).
A riding hat with a fixed peak and a chin cup strap - broken neck in the waiting!
Leather anti-cast rollers (they were heavy!).
Milk powder to put on weight.
Having to ride in a shirt and tie and hairnet.
When long rubber boots first came out.
Non-stretch johdpurs!
Spending hours cleaning tack
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Hacking jackets.
Waxed jackets.
Hunter wellies that lasted
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Bed banking that could be sat on (and had to be or we didn't get any lunch!).
Leather everything, no webbing lol.
 
12 hour days weekends and school holidays helping out at the local riding school with a free ride every couple of months (if I was lucky!), bran mash in the winter, cavalry twill jods, scraping the sweat from saddles as no fancy numnahs, hadn't even heard of poo picking but can anyone beat the riding hat borrowed from my big sister and padded out with hankies to make it fit!
 
Coacholine!!
My pony had a jute rug, one canvas NZ and a string sweat sheet, he was thatched when wet with straw. He had pony cubes and bran and sugar beet, i used a chopper to cut straw to make chaff!! Cod liver oil was the only supplement fed.
Swimming in the sea on my pony, learning to jump using breakwaters, going to the chippy and leaving him outside!!
Blasting down grass verges and jumping anything possible.
We used to buy fake fur in bright colours and make numnahs with matching girth sleeve and noseband covers!!
Wow im old!!
 
I used to have a padded out hat too
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My mum assured me that's why they had a handy 'pocket' you could put the tissues in around the inside of the hat
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A 'calmer' had never been heard of, along with the feed balancers, speedibeet, etc.
 
I was only talking about some of these things to a young girl at the stables a few weeks ago ... She was looking at me as if I was mad!!!!!
I remember when you really only fed Spillers pony nuts and bran...
and the local hunting horses. were fed Main Ring Blue and when the season was taking its toll on them it was upt to Main Ring Red.
You always hacked to the blacksmiths forge and when you pony was lame you got the blacksmith to do a home visit.
The only wormer on the market was a pot of granules you got from the pet shop ( any one remember what it was called ??)
If you put a jute rug on a pony you were spoiling it ... and you were laughed at if you turned up at pony club with your pony all booted up.
No fly sprays and certainly no fly rugs and they were out 24/7
You had one nice brown numnah that only came out on show day.... it was all the rage when cottage craft brought out there lovely coloured material girths
Membership at the local pony club was £3.00 and year then 50 pence a class
And you always hacked there and that was probably 8 miles one way.
 
OMG I am officially ancient!!

I remember so many of these and yes made haynets out of baler twine!! Fed bran mash, jumped park benches, galloped in the park.....OMG string girths...weren't they evil!! x
 
Red string girth
Brown numnah
Jute rug and then progressed to a stable rug with wide belly band fitting, I sewed my pony's name on the side with felt !!

Hack 5 miles to the show. Do all the gymkhana games, Family pony, Best Rider and Clear Round. Tie said pony upto the tree while we ate out sarnies, and then hack 5 miles home adorned with rosettes, and carrying prizes (yes - you got prizes in those days!!)

Nobody ever poo picked

Nobody knew of any horse with had back trouble.

If your horse was naughty, you just rode it more

And horses without shoes were called 'unshod', not 'barefoot' !!!
 
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I can remember when you could use 2p in a phone-box

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I can remember when you could take 4d (old money
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) to make a phone call from a phone box! - Beginning to feel absolutely ancient!
 
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