You know your a horse geriatric when.....

Saving up to buy my proper wax jacket and thinking it was amazing.

String girths.

Always putting on hoof oil everytime we groomed.

Always mounting from the ground.

If a numnah was any other colour apart from black, navy blue or white it was terribly exciting.

The chinstrap on my skull cap. Saving up to get a coloured silk for my skull cap.

The elastic strap on my velvet really thin riding hat.

Always taking a hoofpick when out hacking.

Velvet browbands.

Riding in wellies.

No hi viz.
 
i also remember hacking to the blacksmiths to get shoes put on, at a tiny sum of £5 a set, then hacking back cantering along all the grass verges on the way.

^^^^^ Yes, this. No hot mobile shoeing - you went to the forge or had them put on cold.
and Grass verges

and using a twig for a whip when pony just refused to move!
 
and stirrup lights but no hi-vis

cantering back along the footpath (not even a bridlepath) in the dark

I worked in a Essex Saddlery in Halstead and spent all my wages on tack and riding clothes! I had a lovely bowler hat for hunting - even though I was only 17!
 
I still carry a folding hoofpick when i ride :)
I remember flipping my hat elastic over the brim, green checked waistcoats, stirrup lights and cantering along verges in the dark....
Fed straights..big tin of molasses in the feedroom...
Rubber boots and chilblains.
Stiff girths and ponies always blew out when girthing up, and it was standard practice to knee it in the ribs......
 
My dad built our trailer and it had a roof of parachute silk or some other off cut from Courtalds mill where he worked. Cant remember what he drove but probably just a medium sized car.

Doing local gymkhanas with him literally pulling my lazy pony around - and I still have those rosettes. Which are so small and plain compared to today's monstrosisites! <sp>

Going hunting at 4 on the leading rein.
 
Also forgot to add,

Feeding polomints and sugar lumps was the norm

(I've recently returned to riding regularly after approx a 10 year break and Im still cantering along the grass verges, is this wrong?)
 
HTML: 
(I've recently returned to riding regularly after approx a 10 year break 
and Im still cantering along the grass verges, is this wrong?)

no penks this is very acceptable at any age :D
no idea how that quote went wrong !!
 
Penks said:
Also forgot to add,

Feeding polomints and sugar lumps was the norm

(I've recently returned to riding regularly after approx a 10 year break and Im still cantering along the grass verges, is this wrong?)
Click to expand...

Well not on ours now :( They are full of rubbish and the council now cut the grass and leave it, so they have a horrendous camber!
 
Springy said:
Sugar lumps.... never see anyone feedig them now, we used to get the out of hotels and feed them to the horses when on hollies :)
Click to expand...

Lol me and my sister were both horse daft growing up and whenever we were in a hotel on holiday with our parents or just in a cafe we would go round the tables and em discreetly "aquire" as many sugar lumps as we could to take to the stables.
 
straw 50p hay £1 full set of shoes £5 jumping clear round 50p. jumping 75p people were happy to own a pony and not so bitchy on the yards kids rode ponies teenager rode cobs adults rode horse brushes were better quality only english leather string gloves i still have a lot of the stuff i had in the 70's
 
I remember when I had my pre-school jabs I was offered a sugar lump for "being brave".
I refused to eat it , little knowing it was laced with the polio vaccine, as I wanted to take it home for one of the horses! I think there was a bit of a battle over it.

We had always snuck them away at cafes too.
 
I remember the days of string sweat blankets, the joy of making a hot bran mash and adding treacle from a tin (that got EVRYWHERE) and pure oats! I remember feeling very smug the first time I bought a bag of molasses chaff!!
Those blue quilted jackets with a horses bit design all over it and loveson rubber boots you couldn't take off.
Old fashioned 'Aladdin cave' style tack shops
Feeding your pony a full packet if polo mints (the spear mint ones with the blue flecks) without fear if laminitis
Meeting a stranger in isolated woodland when hacking and stopping for a chat instead of wondering if they are a rapist
Girths made of string
Riding hats with elastic straps and later feeling like the bee's knees after buying my first jockey skull with a rubber chin cup which was held closed by a hook!
The time of trusting your vet and blacksmiths word as gospel
Working as a 'helper' at the riding school, from the age of 10....from 8 am-6pm on the promise of having a free ride (one day)
 
I remember dismantling my riding hat out of interest and found that just a thin sliver of cork stood between me and the ground if I fell off then the feeling of smug satisfaction when I got a skull cap which compared to today's hats wasn't much better than the cork hat!

I remember hacking to shows and hunter trials in which the novice classes were around 3ft

Wax jackets heavier than you were the norm, if you had a long one twice as heavy as you but that fastened around the legs when you rode all the better

Benches and picnic tables were fair game as jumps - as long as no one was sat at them of course!
 
3 of us bringing 15 riding school ponies in from the field half a mile up the road.....riding one bareback with a head collar and two lead ropes for reins and each leading two each side. Heaven help any cars we met!

But we DID have to wear our riding hats. :-)
 
janietee_5 said:
3 of us bringing 15 riding school ponies in from the field half a mile up the road.....riding one bareback with a head collar and two lead ropes for reins and each leading two each side. Heaven help any cars we met!

But we DID have to wear our riding hats. :-)
Click to expand...

I remember doing this and the two little shetlands just followed without being lead by anyone! When we had to take them back up to the field we would always go the long way for a gallop
 
I am 47 years old, had ponies all my life and I remember hacking to our local summer gymkhana (only really posh people had trailers in those days!!) I was about 10 and I went into the best turned out, and I came third (still have the rosette somewhere) and I was wearing the shiney-est black wellington boots because my mum and dad couldn't afford to buy me a proper pair of riding boots. Judge told me - and I remember it vividly - that best turned out was taking what you had and cleaning it to make it shine, and she could see that my wellies were shining brightly!!!

can you imagine what would be said if that happened these days?

The helcyon, magical days of my childhood ... thanks for this thread, I've loved reading all the memories!!
 
Hereshoping said:
When you can remember all the top horses were TBs and the warmbloods had yet to make their mark.
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Thats funny i dont remember TB or other breeds either they were all mixed horses and ponies mainly with some cob in them im sure they were the days. I also dont remember ks as many foot problem fat horses and half the health problems our horses get now adays or problem horses maybe i was just lucky
 
I'm 50 and despite growing up in North Yorshire never saw a pony in a rug until the 1990's when I was living in Berkshire. Our ponies happily lived out with snow on their backs and were healthy and long lived....
 
Omg, this thread has made me laugh. It's also made me feel old. I remember nearly everything everybody mentioned on this one. But my best memory is, wait for it, HAY 50p a small bale off the field. I wish we could get it at that price now. I never wore a hat when I first started riding. I too used to canter/gallop up the grass verges and duck down under road signs. It's a wonder I never killed myself. I loved every minute of it. :-)
 
My daughter found an old photo and framed it for me. There i am in all my jacket, elasticated chib strap velvet hatted glory. Thick hunter noseband and bit stops, orange rubber reins and bad hair do. Made me feel a bit sad.......so much has changed......
 
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