I had a Courbette, too, a VSD. One day I was carrying it into the barn, and a guy said, “somebody has a new saddle!” It took a while for me to realize that he was talking about my seven-year-old saddle.
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Didn’t the Newmans own it at one point? What was it called then?
Far West
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Warmbloods were such an oddity in NJ’s 1980s OTTB Land that if you spotted one, it became the talk of the show/clinic. “Did you see that huge chestnut in the other ring?!”
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Or as Paul Newman called it “The Money Pit.” Source - Practical Horseman
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I bought a slightly used Steuben Rex for $75.00. Fit every single horse I rode, whether TB, Saddlebred, Quarter Horse, or the half warmblood/TB I had. We trained or rode whatever came into the barn. If it was a Saddlebred, we’d bring out the cut back. A Quarter Horse? Out came the western saddle, and so forth. Showed everything in every division. We weren’t breed specific back then.
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Velvet helmets with no chin straps and stovepipe boots
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Lovatt and Rickett’s saddles…I believe they were English made, the newest thing after the PDN, but I don’t think they ever really caught on that well…
and suede chaps. I still have mine, from when I was sixteen, and can amazingly still fit and ride in them. Nice and warm in the winter!
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I sure do, I think her first pony was Port Royale, I was one of there older kids and got to school him.She rode with Alan Brand.
1969 was a momentous year;
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It was a momentous year in my life too.
I am so glad I am not any younger, I would have missed the whole counter-culture the hope and the excitement that maybe, just maybe we young people could get stuff done.
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New Zealand rugs and the Miller’s catalog
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In 4th grade I gave myself a $500 budget as I paged through that catalog. Then I’d add it and have to put some stuff “back” on the wishful order. The day I had saved enough money to buy a leather halter to use on my schoolie of the week was one of the happiest of my life. And then when the barn witch yelled at me for removing it from a boarder’s stall door, and how I proudly told her the halter was mine …
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Omg, those stupid New Zealand rugs. I still remember hanging them up to dry when they got wet, and just hoping they would be halfway dry enough to use by the next day. Lol.
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Right? And they were so bloody heavy even when they weren’t wet. I’m still in love with their looks but if I had to buy a new blankie, it’d be … well, it wouldn’t be a NZ.
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I used to say putting a New Zealand rug on a horse in cold weather was pretty much the same amount of effort as assembling a portable shelter around the horse.
So stiff and awkward! And smelly!
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Every Miller’s catalog had folded-down corners on nearly every page to mark items that the very-young chestnutmarebeware thought I needed for my ponies.
Of course, everything that was really needed came from the local tack store…
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Apologies if I posted this upthread 
Before WBs were omnipresent in the Hunters, so mid-late 80s, there was a division (always with few entries) for Non-Thoroughbred.
My trainer at the time always wanted me to enter my non-tattooed(never raced) & built QHsy TB for the points. I declined. 
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I remember the Miller’s catalog. That was about the same era that you could buy decent western saddles at your local Sears store. (Remember Sears? Or is that confirming my age?)
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Birthday present one year was Sears catalog grooming kit.
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