The blog.
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The National School of Equitation
Every now and then I like to write about riding schools: principally I think because it’s where the bulk of my equine experience lies, and I’m fascinated by what the riding school means to other people, and what the riding schools themselves were like. With this particular riding school, I found a story I wasn’t…
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The blacksmith’s, Roxby
I came across the photograph below in a World War II copy of Riding magazine from Jan-March 1943. If you’re wondering about the unusual dating, Riding was then down to four issues every year because of paper shortages. At its foundation in 1936, and through to the early years of the war, it was a monthly publication. As…
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Jackie Hance: a remarkable child rider
If you’d been a member of the horse world, or even a casual reader of a provincial newspaper in the inter-war years, you would have been hard put to avoid the name of Jackie Hance. But fame fades, and when I was looking through School for Horse and Rider recently, which was written by Jackie’s…
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Camden Stables – in Search of Horse Ghosts
I originally wrote this post when the bronze statues were still there. I’ve updated it to reflect the fact they’ve gone. I’ve also added in some information about how the horses were shod to tackle the ramp. In most towns and cities, you can probably, if you look hard enough, find evidence of the working…
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Vintage Riding Schools – Heather Hall
This blog initially appeared on my old website, which is gradually being transferred. If you took Pony Magazine in the 1970s and before, you might remember an occasional feature it did called Round the Riding Schools. The sort of riding school that got itself featured here taught you to ride the right way, with instructors…
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A supermarket for horses: the Horse Bazaar of Baker Street
The vast shopping centre is something we’re all used to, but it’s not where you’d go if you wanted to buy a horse. In the early years of the 19th century, it is exactly where you would have gone, particularly if you’d wanted to mix with the fashionable. I must admit that before this week,…
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The majesty that is fancy dress class part 2
Yet more delights from Ponies of Britain magazines …. Here’s part one, if you missed it. Firstly, you have the exhibit where the ponies are definitely bearing more of the load (often literally): Could Humpty actually see? What would have happened if the soldier had dropped the lead rope and the Shetland wall had been…
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Fancy dress part 1
The Ponies of Britain Magazine, of which I have acquired several copies over the years, was crammed with pictures of delectable show ponies, but it did not shy away from the less serious elements of equine life. Fancy dress. Oh, how I love fancy dress. Not that I am any good at it myself, mark…
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BAME books in the horse world
The horse world, at least as portrayed in most horse and pony stories in the UK, is pretty uniform. It’s a world that’s generally white, that’s generally middle to upper class and that is generally female. Not that a preponderance of female characters is a bad thing, in my opinion. The pony book is the…
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You are what you wear …
When I started riding, back in the 1960s, there was a jodhpur hierarchy. And I was at the bottom.