Just Me:
What was your horse’s name?
The Jack Rockwell down south is the son of the late JR of The Hill.
All these long ago memories! I remember sneaking the schoolies out and riding bareback in a halter in the early 60’s. (what was a helmet?) Later on I rode at Round Hill in Greenwhich CT. I remember Salem View turned The Hill turned Old Salem, Couch House, Stratford, Wilton PC, NCMT, Nimrod, Sweet Briar, (my Mom started lessons there when she was 55!) Sunnyfield-- McIntoshes- pre Neilsens, etc. I didn’t ride at ORHC but I do remember Tar Baby and Miss T. Knew The Saddler! The old Greenwich show grounds, Altschult’s in Stamford. The original Coker Farms in Greenwhich.
Ahhh…memories.
I’m a bit younger than some, started riding in the ‘70s in New England. My very first show was on an OTTB school horse - I remember my trainer telling me there was this new division, “Children’s Hunters” that was especially for beginners on school horses, anyone who’d taken a couple of lessons could do it because the fences were only 3’ :lol:
I rode on Long Island in the 60’s. Medal/Maclay and hunters. I qualified for MSG at the last Sleepy Hollow Show of the season. I learned from Capt. Littaur; rode with Ralph Peterson and Harry DeLeyer. I trained horses for John M. Schiff in Oyster Bay too. Joe Koscuik shipped my horses in his Harry Kopf “gray” horse vans. We kept our horses at Little Plains Stable in Greenlawn LI NY.
[QUOTE=mroades;3646657]
In the 70’s I was jumping ponies over 3’ jumps bareback in a halter…even backwards! Kids nowadays dont get to do that stuff. I remember taking my Harrisburg qualifying medium to swim in the borrow pit, then being champion the next weekend.[/QUOTE]
Nothing too fabulous to report other than learning to ride in the early 60’s without instruction of any sort. Just spent my free time living on my horse…rode him to “town” to be with the others at the local riding stable. My horses were in the country on our property.
There were a few older riders there that excelled at jumping so a few of us children would play on the course afterward…not having a clue that we "couldn’t " jump those things. My guy (who later qualified for the Olympics I was told) jumped 6’ with a 6’ spread coop. We flew so high…his tucked legs were above the standards most times…me grinning the entire time…clueless that this horse was special.
Sneaking mom’s pink bedsheets to make leg wraps and bows for his mane and tail…sigh…so much fun to grow up with horses and dogs for best friends.
Oh, Bud from The Saddler. Man, he really loved measuring all the young girls.
WRC and NCMT - fond memories from my youth.
One of my funniest memories is when I rode these school ponies at Fairfield and would be constantly in the dirt. Mrs. McKinney came up to me one day and told me that everytime someone fell off they had to put a dollar in the coffee can which paid for the Christmas party. Although I only rode there a year or so, I am sure my contributions far outlasted my stay.
Another from the left coast
I started riding in the mid '70s too. I totally remember outside courses over hill and dale, freezing my tail off at winter schooling shows. I started riding in Denver, although I live on west coast now. No helmets ever (unless we were actually in a class). I also remember riding in summer in shorts, chaps and tennis shoes… Those were the days ( its a wonder I survived!)
My first 2 horses were little appys, then 2 OTTBs and now back to an appy…
Good Old (Hill) Days
[QUOTE=pines4equines;3646786]
Clearound: I was at the Hill the summer of 1979. I worked the show aisle. I remember a groom in the boarder aisle I really looked up to, she was an older woman…at that time I thought she was older, maybe 30-ish and she was a wealth of info.
I was also supposed to work for Barney Ward. When I went in the barn to ask for a job, the head groom took me aside and said “Trust me, you don’t want to work here.” I left and never went back.[/QUOTE]
I remember Barney from the jumper classes… he spent a lot of time sans horse. He was also one of those people whose reputation seemed to precede him and if you had half a brain you got out of the way.
I boarded at the Hill the year before it transferred ownership. I came there with a gelding and childrens hunter prospect and eventually bought a beautiful, talented, opinionated TB mare. She taught me how to guide without interfering… god help you if you interfered (Can you say do the 5 in three? I knew you could.). To my trainers dismay I took her out to ride some of the hunt fields with a group of locals. OMG, going from the Eqs to cross country with the field hunters I thought I was going to die. :lol:
I loved that area… it was beautiful, the shows were fun, and horses seemed to be everywhere you looked. It is one of the few places I’ve ever lived where people commonly wore riding clothes to lunch and shopping.
I guess I am really OLD. Seeing how I rode at NCMT in the 50’s. I do rememberall those horses plus Mr Buttercup, Shoebutton (shetland pony) Squirrel, Burgundy (I owned him) then donated him. Jimmy’s Girl - Carol Wilson owned her. Remember Toby Self?
We use to hack all the way over to the Wilton Riding club to show and then hack back home that night. We got to ride in the New Canaan Parades. What FUN !!!
The went on to ORHC, Patty had the horse named Pete. Patty was my Maid of Honor at my wedding 46 years ago. She is now down in Southern Pines. 
I rode at one A rated H/J show at the Cow Palace in the 80’s, but on a greenish TWH/Morgan mare, not a TB. :lol:We did a couple of “maiden” Hunter over fences classes (I think at 2’3") and a HUS class. She jumped everything, and did the transitions when asked, but we didn’t get any ribbons. We were definitely outclassed, but it was so close we didn’t even need to trailer there, just rode through the neighborhood.
My Dad did Showjumping on Long Island in the 50’s and 60’s, when he was young.
In more recent times, I’ve only done schooling H/J shows, on a couple of different TBs. I believe you that some TBs are tough rides, but the ones I’ve been able to ride regularly are all practically saintly!
Ivy62 - “But the real kicker was the rings were next to a freight train track and when a train came they said dismount and we did then waited for the train to leave and we continued on!”
FONDA??? Or is there another trackside arena?
Jeffrey Pooka - Pooka to his friends. :lol: A chestnut with four white socks and a big white blaze. My friend’s horse was Hermes.
horsemanship
back when equitation was called "horsemanship:cool:’ i recall being told about a pony HOTY whose, owner/ rider did not know gasp:lol:1 how to bridle a horse; that was considered very much a scanda:lol:l!andwas the subject of many “letters to the:winkgrin: editor”
[QUOTE=Vandy;3648814]
I’m a bit younger than some, started riding in the ‘70s in New England. My very first show was on an OTTB school horse - I remember my trainer telling me there was this new division, “Children’s Hunters” that was especially for beginners on school horses, anyone who’d taken a couple of lessons could do it because the fences were only 3’ :lol:[/QUOTE]
Oh my gosh, my trainer told me the EXACT same thing. :lol:
[QUOTE=ccoronios;3648911]
Ivy62 - “But the real kicker was the rings were next to a freight train track and when a train came they said dismount and we did then waited for the train to leave and we continued on!”
FONDA??? Or is there another trackside arena?[/QUOTE]
It was in Congers NY Fredericks feed and grain…the big thing was these trains on average were 200 cars!!!
I remember galloping my large bareback through the cornfields and then being champion on her days later at Harrisburg. She was in a halter with a leadrope and I was in jeans and sneakers. She never took a lame step in her life.
Makes me laugh as I think back to just this past weekend. I trailered my daughters’ ponies out to friend’s house to trail ride. Both ponies have on splint boots and ankle boots and bell boots and I was still paranoid that they would somehow injure, hurt, or bruise their dainty little legs.
It’s crazy how the times change. But then again, back then my pony wasn’t even half the price of what my daughters’ ponies now are. Times sure do change.
Drawreins, I went on a trail ride a couple of weeks ago with a halter and leadrope, and no boots on the horse. 
We didn’t gallop, and mostly did W/T, but got a couple of nice canters in. http://www.flickr.com/photos/82782698@N00/2976984884 He’s a good boy. I think it reflects more on the horse care choices people make than on what year it is.
Another northeasterner here
I started riding in 1969 or 1970. First at Fox Hill in the days when Frank Grenci ran the place, and then at Sleepy Hollow Country Club from 1972 though high school, then back there on and off after college.
For ther person who worked for Gary Rockwell – he taught me in the mid 70’s until Pam Hart Freeley came to be the hunter/jumper trainer. When Gary came back to Sleepy Hollow years later I took some lessons from him to improve my flatwork.
The first time I jumped in a horse show was at The Hill on a friend’s pony. Continued to show there on and off through the 70’s. Never had my own horse so I was one who benefitted from that new children’s hunter division that anyone could do cause it was only 3’. Showed at places like Coker, Fairfield, Ox Ridge, Pendleton, Catamount (later Huntover). Got run away with something awful on the outside course at Fairfield. Trainer was yelling at me to drop my stick – unfortunately I had already done that and it didn’t help.
Spent summers at riding camp in New Hampshire waking up at the crack of dawn to muck and feed, groomed, tacked up, taught lessons, rode anything I could, horse showed all over southern New Hampshire.
Writing about this makes me nostalgic for the old days…
I started riding in the late 60’s and showing in the early 70’s (small ponies)…
I remember, terrible footing in uneven (even hilly) grass rings, no in or out “gates”. (Along with my dad standing there ready to catch my pony if he bolted out of the ring).
Outside courses, cutting the straps of my helmets, velvet collars, riding bareback all over the place in shorts without a helmet, swimming the ponies and being chased by the game wardens at the local reservoir, making crazy jumps at home and in the woods…jumping picnic tables and anything else we could at the playground at the neighborhood school, and begging my mom to let me ride my white pony around on Halloween and me dressed as the Lone Ranger… she never would let me do that!
Yes, those were the good old days for sure!
Another name from my past.
She was my second instructor, and taught me my “up down” lessons at Shrub Oak Stables, outside Peekskill. It was torn down when they widened Rt 6. But by then we had moved to Bedford, and were in the process of geting a pony of our own.
She was then Pam Haviland, and still a junior. We went to watch her ride in the Eq finals at the “old” Garden.
