I do not have zippers. Hate them!
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When I showed 4-H there definitely were kids who wore sleeveless shirts and just had cuffs they wore to show at the jacket ends. The thought of the old satin lining clinging to my sweaty arms still gives me the ughs.
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The thought of this made me gag a little 
. No thank you. I grew up riding right when the mesh/tech coats started to become “the thing”, but I was on a budget so I still had the old satin lining coats. I can’t imagine putting those on without a long sleeve!
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Or dickies!
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So random, but I visited Fennell’s in Lexington when I was there for the Breeder’s Cup last month—it’s a very neat relic with tons of great saddlebred memorabilia to look at, beautiful and affordable leather goods, and an excellent wall of very inexpensive bits.
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My mother did this for me- I outgrew the shoulders of my ratcatchers before I outgrew the rest of them so she would repurpose them as short sleeve or sleeveless shirts and pin the cuffs to my hunt coats. I can confirm what you say about the lining. Mom has always been frugal and creative.
My mom also returned as a re-rider after some time spent primarily as groom and show mom extraordinaire. Her line in the sand is that she refuses to wear field boots. She has high arches and scar tissue in her ankles, and has horrible memories of how painful she found it to pull her boots on and get them pulled off. No amount of “but Mom, they have zippers now, you can just put your foot in them” will convince her otherwise.
When she returned to the saddle, she did so in the same full chaps she wore in high school. The zippers finally gave out a few years ago after I can’t think how many years of use. She couldn’t find a cobbler who would replace them economically and so she retired them.
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This is a common option on the Charles Ancona coats, and when you are showing in really hot weather, it is GREAT to be able to wear short sleeves or even a sleeveless show shirt underneath it 
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After being “the grooms” for the kids we discovered NARTC competitive trail were the Only person who could care for the horse entered was the rider who checked it in, Believe me a four foot something horse crazy ten year old girl can and will find a way to groom and saddle her 14.1h horse. And the horse would be spotless.
Now full cycle as that ten year old is now 36 still showing with wife at times being the supportive groom and getter of things forgotten or needed
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Unless you had the boot jack, which was fabulous. Until you had a mishap and kicked yourself in the foot, leaving a gigantic bruise. Lol.
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The other thing that I think is a factor these days with a lot of kids is the time constraint. When I was a kid, I would spend all afternoon at the barn during the school year, and all day at the barn during the summer. I would get my own horses ready, ride them, put them away, and then help around the barn. Or set jumps, or watch other lessons, or whatever.
A lot of the kids today seem to be fitting the horse activity in around their other 10 activities, so they just don’t seem to have the time to hang out at the barn all day and go for a trail ride out through the woods, or bop around bareback, or what have you. Much less hop on an extra horse if one happens to need some exercise.
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Yup. And upthread, someone said that they jumped 2’6 to 2’9 in the 2nd year green; that’s a 3’9 division
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when we first started showing winning trophies were Silver, then wen to Sliver Plated then Plastic finished in silver color or Glass
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@MHM, that’s really true. We rode all the time. Very few kids today get that opportunity. Fewer places to ride, period, and longer distances to get to those barns. Kids have other activities, and parents do as well. It’s a different time, for sure.
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What else has changed: on the positive side, horses get better vet care.
Looking back, I am sure I rode horses with undiagnosed injuries - that’s what that head tossing, or —, was really all about. Now, there are better tools to find these problems, if the owners want to pursue the investigation. And it wasn’t just me: that was the state of things.
Another one mentioned already: better footing. As a junior rider, we didn’t pay any attention at all to footing. Never heard of it as a consideration. No wonder navicular was so pervasive.
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to this day i absolutely will not wear a sleeveless shirt with or without a jacket , and wont wear a short sleeved one under a jacket. Tacky.
ps i live in FL
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That reminds me of those videos where they show the kids of today old things like typewriters.
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Though I won’t either- is “Tacky” really necessary? 
Especialy in reference to a 4H post.
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unfortunately i saw it done at a lot of A hunter shows back in the 80s and yes there it is indeed tacky.
How can you even tell, in the show ring?
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My mother gave me a brown tweed coat and matching brown boots that she had worn when riding in Central Park in the early 1940s. Both were hopelessly out of fashion–but I was happy to have an outfit I could show in that was at least semi-presentable.
Five years later, I was showing in that madras plaid jacket you coveted and probably still looked pretty dorky. 
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