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Post by nich on Nov 23, 2014 21:27:51 GMT 1
I can't see the quiz either. My parents weren't horsey, and when I asked for riding lessons at the age of ten I got the 'we can't afford for all four of you to have that, so no', it applied to all sorts of things. Fair enough, I wouldn't be without my sisters and brother, but didn't see it like that when I was ten! We didn't live in walking or cycling distance of a yard where I could work for rides. I started riding in my thirties with my OH who had ridden with a previous girlfriend. Now horses are our 'thing' we have moved two hundred miles to be able to have horses at home and OH retrained to work with horses. His parents were even less horsey ...
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Post by sarahbing on Nov 26, 2014 18:52:25 GMT 1
I was completely obsessed with horses from a very early age, but riding was only something I managed to do as a treat on holidays. At 9, I got a 'job' leading ponies at a local riding stables for pony rides, in return for a hack at the end of the day. At 13, I shared a pony with a friend, finally experiencing proper horse ownership ( a steep learning curve) but had to finance this myself with various part time jobs. At 15 I had saved enough to buy my own pony. The rest, as they say, is history! I have no idea where this passion came from as none of my family is remotely interested! ( I sometimes wonder if there was some mix up at the hospital LOL!)
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Post by lizpurlo on Nov 26, 2014 20:49:26 GMT 1
Isn't it odd how many of us have such unhorsey parents? Sarahbing, I've often wondered that too, I'm sure there must be some incredibly horsey farming family in Ayrshire with an extremely academic and solemn member who has no interest at all in farming or horses. Reincarnation? - what do you think? The earliest dreams I can remember were of riding racehorses.
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Post by mrbsmum on Nov 26, 2014 20:54:59 GMT 1
I was very lucky - my parents weren't horsey at all at the start, but insisted that if I gave up Ballet (which is what I told them I wanted to do), I had to do something else. So I picked horse riding (actually, I said 'Bull Riding' - but I was 6, and my mum interpreted that as horse riding). Thankfully my Mum knew someone whose brother owned a riding school, so off we went. I think my Mum had ridden a few times on her holidays as a kid, and fell into the 'wanted to be horsey but parents wouldn't let her' category, so not long after I started, my sisters also started, and after a while my parents both started to. After about a year or so, they bought us our first pony, and then a few years after that my Mum bought herself a cob. I kind of stopped for a while when I outgrew our little welshie, but couldn't quite manage my Mum's boy, and there were one or two short term loans that were meant to provide me with an interim pony (but generally ended up with the pony being sold, the owner wanting it back suddenly etc, just as I started to build a relationship with it - I was never very lucky with loans!). Later I finished at Uni I started lessons again, and now although I don't have a horse to ride, I have my two little mini shetlands, and my Mum still has horses which i get to ride occasionally when I'm home.
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Post by lisap on Nov 27, 2014 12:07:10 GMT 1
I come from a completely non-horsey family as well, but was obsessed with horses from day one. Apparently, when my mum was expecting my younger sibling she asked me whether I wanted a little brother or sister, and at the grand age of 3 and a half replied "I'd rather have a horse".
However, unlike many other posters, my parents were relatively well off, and I started riding lessons at the age of 6, and when I was 11 we moved to a house in the countryside outside of Bristol and I had my first pony at the age of 11. Being sensible parents, rather than indulging their daughter, instead they insisted that I had holiday jobs from the age of 16 and all the money from those jobs went towards paying for Ginty's hay and accessories. My new saddle was a present for gaining my O levels (fantastic incentive for hard studying and revision). They also came up with a great way to teach me to organise and prioritise my money. From the age of 14 onwards, instead of weekly pocket money, my parents gave me, what at the time (early 70's)seemed a fantastic monthly 'allowance'. This was the astonishing amount of £30.00 a month. However, this money had to pay for absolutely everything except my food and board at home, and schoolbooks and uniform. All my leisure clothing, records, social activities, rent for the horse's summer field, hard food, shoes, tack and accessories had to come out of this allowance. So from the age of 14 onwards I was budgeting and working out my finances in a way that most kids never do until they leave school and set up on their own. Although there were many times that I used to feel very hard done by - especially when I saw my rather more spoiled friends being ferried off to shows by their doting parents while I was slaving away at the local motorway service station to earn Ginty's winter hay - I now thank my parents foresight and wisdom as their approach has stood me in such good stead throughout my adult life.
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Post by janwilky on Nov 27, 2014 19:20:26 GMT 1
Wow, what sensible and thoughtful parents you had Lisa
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Post by portiabuzz on Nov 27, 2014 20:45:18 GMT 1
Sent from my SM-G800F using proboards
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