Or simply highlight the text you want to quote and then click on the word quote which appears. That’s what I did for this post.
Yes, and Area II responded by handing out “Smurf Award” for many years. I have one looking down at me now.
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- startles awake in rocking chair, briefly shakes fist at errant whippersnappers on lawn - -
Whatever happened to helsinkis? Back in my day, sonny, when we shuttled XC and dressage score sheets by hand wearing our best velveteen helmets (best volunteer gig ever, even when uphill, both ways), those were always fun to jump.
I can see tiger traps being phased out. (Athough if people can create frangible tables, surely any fence can be made more safe.) But what was the issue with helsinkis?
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Great thread!
I still have a couple of wool coolers, white lined bridles (every piece of these bridles are white lined, not just the brow/nose/crown! I have always thought they were really neat looking!), my old colored helmet cover with a bow (as well as my velvet hunt cap), and just found an old pair of pull-on tall boots while moving that I didn’t know I still had, and that likely don’t fit me anymore! I had a boot jack and boot pulls to go with them, too (probably still have those somewhere), and I remember it taking about three people to pull them off of my feet, lol!
I also still have three flat saddles (Collegiate Graduate, Crosby Prix des Nations, and Crosby Sovereign) and two Courbette Husars that are blasts from the past! I have tons of other older tack as well, including Ulster boots, a Crosby USET bridle, several pairs of braided/plaited reins that are my favorites, a pair of rolled reins that went with a rolled bridle, a Campbell bridle with a braided design in the brow and noseband (still love that look!), a couple of drop nosebands, clincher browbands, and TONS of stuff from Miller’s (along with a few things from Eiser’s, Whitman, Crump, Libertyville, etc.)! I believe I have a Never Rust bit or two around here somewhere as well!
Oh, and I have a few pairs of open front boots with the Olympic logo on them, which were from Miller’s in 1996!
I had a shirt with an embroidered collar and miss it, and would love to have another!
One of my horses I owned in high school was fed Calf Manna as well.
In my early years at my first barn (hunters), I remember seeing a lot of racing D-ring snaffles (the more square-shaped D’s), double twisted wire full cheek snaffles, really thin and refined bridles (mostly plain round or square raised), flat saddles, no half pads (when I took a break from English and came back, I was surprised to see half pads on almost every horse), SMB boots (still have several sets of those as well), etc.
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I’ll tell you what outraged me the most when I got back into riding - insulated boot covers for winter riding !!! What? I froze my toes in the stirrups for all those years, why didn’t someone think of those much earlier? 
I also saw half-chaps for the first time, and thought they were one of humankind’s greatest inventions. Right up there with the narrow-tined manure fork!
The interest in making horse life life more comfortable could have profitably begun a few decades before it actually did. I do not feel my character developed at all with those frozen toes.
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Me too - it is actually the most treasured ribbon I have & it is framed in my living room. <3
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I got to do a mini trial run by a pony club a few months ago that had a tiger trap and a real stone wall on the cross country course. They also do their show jumping and dressage on grass. It was rather old school and SO much fun!
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yassss! with your horse’s name embroidered on it <3
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Ooooh the chap jeans! I found mine recently while cleaning and was surprised to find that I could still (barely) fit into them.
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No, a lot of the stuff mentioned I would love to learn about but no instructor around here teaches it to anyone but kids. I maybe an adult but missed out on learning to wrap, bandage, and a bunch of other stuff! Someone needs to offer beginning skills day camps for old fogies. 
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Thus statement hurts my heart! Seriously? No one teaches this stuff? My lesson barn requires students to learn tacking and grooming from age 6. I haven’t seen advanced horse keeping taught, but I haven’t been there through a show season yet.
Who posted about adult pony club, more adult pony club!
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I think if someone asked for such lessons, they could be had. “Tomorrow instead of riding, could the lesson be about wrapping legs instead?”
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@OverandOnward I have wondered about this! I’ve not yet had the guts (or the overall inclination/urgent interest in a particular topic) to ask, but I have wondered. Or if there are clinics. I’ve not found one online.
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At the barn where I learned to ride, in the information sheet it said that if a lesson was rained out there would be a theory/horsekeeping lesson instead.
I don’t really remember this happening, but it seems like a good idea.
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I believe the USPC offers something called HorseMasters for adults. I found an example of a program offered by a barn in VA http://www.redgatefarmva.com/riding/horsemasters/
Hopefully you can find a similar offering at a barn in your area ~ or even start a chapter 
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I would think if enough adults were interested in an area it could be arranged. Maybe a club or contact your pony club regional director and see if they could do a adult theory short course/ masterclass. I like the club idea…if all adults it would be a great networking thing …look the success of wine and painting or coffee and pottery groups. Surely some smart barn owner wants to make a buck to have her horses groomed, wrapped, booted, etc one night a month.
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You gotta ask. Next time riding is cancelled for rain, ask to have a lesson about bandaging or the 7 rules of feeding or some such. Instructors tend to think adults will ask if they want something in particular
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When you could not find a boot jack and a friend would help you pull your boots off, and you’d brace her with your other foot on her butt.
When a badge of honor was having a New Zealand rug with the most different color canvas patches at the barn.
When fox hunting was done without a single two-way radio or cell phone in the entire field.
Fox hunting before there were no coyotes in hunt country.
Finally getting old enough so you were no longer “gate crew” on hunts.
When several of us would drape our red coats over a barb wire fence so the hunt field could jump it “safely.” Way before we learned that horses do not perceive red.
Before “bling” was an actual word that horse people used.
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Thanks for this comment. I think the current saddles are too built up and too soft (Buffalo leather) = not durable for their price.
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I kept one lovely blue woolen cooler from a previous horse and just unearthed it for my new horse, and am loving it!! So lovely and natural. I rather dislike the cheap shavings-/dust-magnet fleece coolers of today (of which we have one, in a lovely middle-blue, but its weight seems light and flimsy compared to the old woolen one)
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