'member the *old* days?

[MistyBlue]

All free time was spent on horseback…or at the barn. Mom dropped you off at sunrise, picked you up after dark. Some nights you’d be phoning home at 10 pm and asking your groggy mom if she perhaps forgot something? Like picking up her kid at the barn? :lol:

In summer helping with the haying was a given…nasty hot sweaty work all day but the ride back to the barn sitting on top of the bales catching whatever breeze you could and knowing there’d be a bonfire and cookout after unloading and stacking it made it worth it.

If you weren’t schooling, conditioning, taking a lesson, giving a lesson or taking out a trail ride…you grabbed yoour horse or some of the barn’s ponies with friends and rode oout to the reservoir or back pond bareback, barefoot in shorts so equines and humans could cool off and go swimming.

I was showing at the time when some saddle pads were first coming into fashion…about 25% used pads and the other 75% didn’t. Madras jackets…we all looked like little Austin Powers out there in those plaid things, LOL! Your hunt cap could be rolled up and stuffed in a jacket pocket when you weren’t in a class. And you did wear the elastic chin strap over the top…because if you had it down random people would grab it, stretch it and let it go to snap you under the chin! :eek: :winkgrin: When I hit my mid-late teens helmets were becoming popular. With chin guards. They were sweaty, but you dealt with it. And you rode so often that everyone’s black velvet helmets were a rusty brown in no time from sun-fading.

And you rode whatever your coached legged you up onto. Every day…you rode at least 3 different horses. During a group lesson you’d have to swap horses from time to time. You were awarded irons or spurs when you earned them. And if you “sinned” by having a swinging leg or goosing your horse…they got taken away again. Many times you only ever used your irons right before a show.

Only small children on tiny ponies showed in classes with jumps under 2’6" or so. Once you got past braids and bows your classes had 3’ jumps or higher. But we had the time in the leather on all sorts of horses doing all sorts of things all the time…with today’s lifestyles and the higher cost of riding/showing and everything else…I think it’s sad that so many children miss out on what many of us grew up doing. My family was far from wealthy…we weren’t even middle class. Yet I showed, owned my own horse, etc. (we were able to work that stuff off back then, 10 yr olds working all day at a barn wasn’t frowned upon)

Even with inflation…the cost of having horses has surpassed it. When I started out…full board at a mid-level facility that showed, had trainers, etc (it also did trail rides, hay rides, pony rides, sales, etc) was $125 for a box in the main barn, $75 for a pony stall and $50 for a straight stall. Fulls shoes with caulks were $50, $25 for fronts only and $10 for a trim. A nice horse was $1500-$3000. A good horse was less.

So even being a small child working in a barn, you could often afford your own horse with what you made. Being a trail guide for rides…you earned $1 for every person who went out for an hour and 50 cents for the 30 minutes rides. Baling hay meant for every day you went with them they knocked a week off your board. It wasn;t much in pay, but it added up quick…it was doing stuff you loved…and the costs for owning the horses wasn’t high anyway.

I wouldn’t trade my childhood growing up at the barn for anything. IMO, it was ideal.

[Alagirl]

lol, I got off easy in the hay/straw department. I only had to go once, then offered to go another time when the 3rd man didn’t show and earned MAJOR browny points for that! :lol:

[chai]

What a fun thread. It’s nice to know there are so many of us from that era. I thought of a few more after Frank mentioned Gentian Violet. I remember it so well. I loved the color but it left quite a stain. I remember when deworming medicine was Equizole powder, the wonderful smell of Bigeloil that still takes me back to hot summer afternoons at Pony Club Clinic in Woodstock, VT, Caliente helmets that rang like a bell if you hit your head, wearing pretty choker collars with white blouses in the hunter and equitation.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=chai;5720311]
What a fun thread. It’s nice to know there are so many of us from that era. I thought of a few more after Frank mentioned Gentian Violet. I remember it so well. I loved the color but it left quite a stain. I remember when deworming medicine was Equizole powder, the wonderful smell of Bigeloil that still takes me back to hot summer afternoons at Pony Club Clinic in Woodstock, VT, Caliente helmets that rang like a bell if you hit your head, wearing pretty choker collars with white blouses in the hunter and equitation.[/QUOTE]

Oh, Bigeloil, I just spent the last two weeks using it on an injured, swollen thumb, that is finally going down and staying down.
Good stuff that, is it.:yes:

[MistyBlue]

LOL Chai…I had forgotten about the cartoon sound the helmets made if you fell off and landed on one! :lol: :lol: :lol:
That’s probably where the expression, “I got my bell rung” came from! :winkgrin:

Those pretty choker collars also came with those scary rat catcher pins. I always wondered who thought it was a good idea to put a sharp metal pointy thing attached to our throats when we were riding large spooky animals that liked to try to dump us off.

[War_Admiral]

[QUOTE=Bluey;5720341]
Oh, Bigeloil, I just spent the last two weeks using it on an injured, swollen thumb, that is finally going down and staying down.
Good stuff that, is it.:yes:[/QUOTE]

It is indeed!!! I’ve been using it the last couple months on the patella I fractured. It feels sooooo good! The gel is even better b/c it’s stronger.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=War Admiral;5720426]
It is indeed!!! I’ve been using it the last couple months on the patella I fractured. It feels sooooo good! The gel is even better b/c it’s stronger.[/QUOTE]

My friend the trainer told me yesterday about the gel and how much easier it is to apply.
She asked me what the Dr said about my sore looking thumb and I responded, that thumb is a problem for Bigeloil, not doctors.
She laughed and told me about the gel then.

Hope you feel better soon, that fracture sounds bad.:eek:

About riding caps, our riding school had only one black velvet cork cap for all of us, we put it on, go jump our course and give it to the next in line.

We didn’t have keg shoes, we made our own from bar steel, to fit each horse.

[trafalgar]

and most equines weathered the winter without a single blanket much less a wardrobe!

[ILuvmyButtercups]

Just thought of this - remember back then the only aluminum trailers out there were the English made Rice brand? How coveted and rare they were? How cool was that front ramp for unloading!?!

I finally bought one in 1980, a 1962 top of the line model in horrible shape. Needed floor, wiring, paint. Paid $900.00 for it then, from a race horse trainer and got it all up to good order. Hated the hydrolic brake system, no one knew how to keep that mess up to code. (There was an oil tank underneath it for that purpose). The tires were an odd size - some outfit in Florida was the only one who sold such tires, and they wanted $250.00 per tire, plus excise tax and shipping!

I used that thing (pulled like a dream!) until 1998, and sold it for $1500.00 !!!
I just got tired of having state inspection problems on it with the braking system, and tires were impossible to come by without robbing a bank. Sorry to see it go, would love to still have it.

[chaserider]

Riding bareback 'cause I was too little to heave a saddle up on to my pony.

Trails, trails, everywhere trails. Those same trails are now golf course communities, shopping malls, housing developments, and parking lots.:no:

[JSwan]

Another barn rat here. You know, the annoying grubby kid who practically lived at the barn and would ride any horse, clean tack, muck stalls, and who owned a rather faded black hunt cap. A real hunt cap - not a helmet.

Every place I ever rode is now paved over or nothing but a sea of McMansions.

I had Thelwell WALLPAPER in my bedroom, people!!! And I lived for the Miller’s catalog. Also had a huge Breyer collection I bet would be worth a small fortune now.

And I couldn’t wait for the day I owned my own farm, so I could line my tack room walls with old COTH issues.

The day COTH switched paper a childhood dream was destroyed. Oh, the horror…

No indoor, no stirrups. Horses lived out, and it was normal to have to go into a field and pull out multiple horses, even as a little kid. Stubbens and TB’s everywhere. Most everyone hunted or had hunted at least a little. We rode in all kinds of weather, all kinds of footing. Outside courses were normal (though disappearing by the time I was doing little schooling shows). Vet came to tube worm, the tack or feed room had that certain smell to it, leather/sweat/liniment/molasses smell , we’d sit on sacks of sweet feed and nibble on the corn (as a barn rat I went slightly feral) and I remember bicycling miles to and from the barn, with my hunt cap dangling from the handlebars by its worn elastic strap.

And I remember that I would ride anything - and did. Also remember when it was so hot out we’d just go out on trails bareback, wearing shorts and sneakers or Keds, and go swimming with the horses at the lake. I think those trails are all gone now…

I hope somewhere there are kids still having that sort of experience with their horses… because it is one helluva great way to spend a childhood.

[Jumpin_Horses]

Barn Rat here!

*** tube worming, ARGH!

*** not only double bareback, also sometimes even more than double. also back-to-back bareback, and “pick-up” game with back-to-back bareback, over jumps, through the woods 100mph

*** on a hot day riding my horse down the road, bareback, with a lead rope/halter. no helmet or shoes. wearing my bathing suit on the way to the pond that had like a 4ft cliff jump into it

*** when my horse Willy was the champion of my universe. he never did me wrong. I trusted him 200%. he didnt need ANY special feed/supps or equipment. he never got sick, he was never lame. he was ubber talented and could jump higher and run faster than any horse on the planet. he was the best friend I ever had, or ever will have… OH! (snif)

[jessicaoft]

I am really enjoying this post ! We used to clean stalls for our lessons, like 15 standing stalls, remember them ? Then we would have to clean the lesson horses tack. We would refer to the bridles as " ho snap reins " They would buy the lesson horses from the auction “Bunchies”. Never knew what you were getting on… It was held in a warhouse in the middle of a housing development. Everyone rode TB’s off the track, Grays were “in” for a long time.
In the winter we would ride up and down the plowed driveway, what was an indoor. Trail ride through the streams bareback, jump whatever was in the way. The tweed show coats by Harry Hall…real stock ties, those yellow colored breeches. Millers ! Gold Cup saddles, Hartman trailer, Command classes, real hedges for jumps, ride a buck (bareback classes with a dollar under your leg) Grooms classes

God I was brave back then ! lol

[CFFarm]

[QUOTE=HappyTalk;5719040]
Does anyone remember the Beckwiths of Boston catalogue and Campbell Coach horse trailers?
Until recently, I had some old Horse Play magazines from the 70’s. The horses standing at stud for hunters were all TBs and QHs. Wonderland Farms had the first WB stallion ads.[/QUOTE]

We made a trip to Beckwith’s to buy my Borelli!

[CFFarm]

[QUOTE=trafalgar;5720509]
and most equines weathered the winter without a single blanket much less a wardrobe![/QUOTE]

Oh, but we all wanted a Baker!

[War_Admiral]

[QUOTE=CFFarm;5721380]
We made a trip to Beckwith’s to buy my Borelli!:D[/QUOTE]

Beckwith’s!!! Good Lord, yes. I had one of those little velvet “hunt cap” things from there when I was a wee one - the soft-shell kind you could tuck in your pocket.

[War_Admiral]

@Bluey;5720507

My friend the trainer told me yesterday about the gel and how much easier it is to apply.
She asked me what the Dr said about my sore looking thumb and I responded, that thumb is a problem for Bigeloil, not doctors.
She laughed and told me about the gel then.

Hope you feel better soon, that fracture sounds bad.:eek:

Oh, you’ll LOFF the Bigeloil gel, if you haven’t tried it. You use a lot less b/c it’s so much stronger, so it’s pretty cost-effective too. In fact I need to order some more, so this thread is a timely reminder. :yes:

Thanks for kind wishes re knee. It’s fine, it’s minor. I didn’t even realize I had cracked it at all, I just thought I had strained the ligaments (which I’ve done before - it felt the same! shrug) until I realized I was still hobbling around on a cane after two MONTHS. Doh. :rolleyes: I’m nearly recovered now, but thanks again for the kind wishes!

[Jumpin_Horses]

[QUOTE=MistyBlue;5719891]
All free time was spent on horseback…or at the barn. Mom dropped you off at sunrise, picked you up after dark. Some nights you’d be phoning home at 10 pm and asking your groggy mom if she perhaps forgot something? Like picking up her kid at the barn? :lol:

I wouldn’t trade my childhood growing up at the barn for anything. IMO, it was ideal. :D[/QUOTE]

:lol: did we have the same Mom? :lol:

I remember one time, she dropped me off in the morning… 9pm rolled around and she pulled up to the barn wearing her PJs (she was in bed sleeping when she remembered that she forgot me) :eek: it was the dead of winter and those days, there were no cell phones, and we didnt have a phone in the barn… Luckily, i could curl up with my (thick-haired) horse in his stall… jeesh!

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=War Admiral;5721412]
Oh, you’ll LOFF the Bigeloil gel, if you haven’t tried it. You use a lot less b/c it’s so much stronger, so it’s pretty cost-effective too. In fact I need to order some more, so this thread is a timely reminder. :yes:

Thanks for kind wishes re knee. It’s fine, it’s minor. I didn’t even realize I had cracked it at all, I just thought I had strained the ligaments (which I’ve done before - it felt the same! shrug) until I realized I was still hobbling around on a cane after two MONTHS. Doh. :rolleyes: I’m nearly recovered now, but thanks again for the kind wishes! :)[/QUOTE]

Yes, two months of hobbling around is a good reason to go see what the Dr tells you.:lol:

I will be ordering some gel too, sounds like a good product and my bottle is getting low anyway.

I too was a barn rat, but I could walk to the riding center and my parents I don’t think ever sat foot there, they just complained of the horse smell when I got back home.

[wireweiners]

Does anyone remember Prof. Beery’s school of horse training? The forerunner to the Parellis and all the other “TV” trainers. He even had his own special training bridle you could order. I sent off for his free material, just sure it would make me a super trainer. Major disappointment.