I remember:
USCTA entry fee was $55 TOTAL
Overgirths! I had forgotten about those.
Long format split times written in pen on an index card and taped to the rider’s forearm with white first aid tape.
The rugby shirts always worn with the helmet cover in alternating triangles of the same two colours as the rugby shirt.
Caliente helmets
Snug-fitting hunt caps with no strap for schooling.
Those stand-alone harnesses that you could pull over the aforementioned hunt caps to make a chin strap/helmet harness.
Tall boots with no zippers or elastic that, when new, you had to have help and friends would stand behind you and shake you into them gripping onto the boot hooks.
Boot jacks for the reverse proceudure.
Polo wraps that tied with their own cloth stips.
Shipping wraps made at a Pony Club unmounted meeting using cotton batting and cheese cloth.
My first event was at Camp Olympic in Maryland on a horse named Penny. I was 13 and it was 1981 or 82 depending on what month it was. I think it was a last minute entry to take someone else’s spot from the farm, who had to drop out. The level was “Pre-Training” which I suppose is Novice now. I remember being sort of “whatever” about going, but after X-C I was hooked and knew this would be my future.
The next year, I joined Pony Club and the USCTA.
I still have a USCTA sticker on my truck.
stand alone helmet harnesses. Having friends bend over to pull your boots off.
I will add Petal bell boots that went flap flap flap.
Me on my little 15.2 OTTB that BD’s jaw dropped and he said ‘she’s learning to jump on this??’ He also asked ‘is this horse always this fit?’ Horse ended up timber racing. He got thrown off a bush track and his track nickname was ‘J Boo’ more for the Jigga part 
than the Boo.
My daughter proudly snagged my USCTA t-shirt.
I was just leafing through the criterion collection, and found a delightful 20 minutes or so video of the Olympics in Stockholm, in 1956. There is video of Frank Weldon, and in SJ there are the D’Zenzio brothers and Winkler with Halla? The cross country was much different, and they had a tiny bit of steeplechase, and roads and track.
I think you mean D’Inzeo , Raimondo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raimondo_D’Inzeo ) and Piero ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_D’Inzeo ).
I remember them well.
my memory is so bad, I came here right after, and I couldn’t remember their correct names or the Germans so I was very brief. Age is creeping up!
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