One of the best things we did, was buying our daughter her first horse when she was about 13. It was a pinto mare called Dawn.colleen went absolutely gaga over that horse and all through Jr high and High school, she didn't go through the boy-crazy stage. She was so crazy about Dawn and the other horse she bought when she was in High school, Apollo, a sleek black quarter horse and Morgan. He was huge! She sold them to a neighbor when she went away to school, but he let her come over to groom and ride "her babies" when she was home. We were lucky to have 40 acres of pasture. Colleen is married and has two daughters (and a son), lives in a MPLS suburb, but has kiddingly said she was going to get a horse for the back yard for her girls, when they were teens. I think there is a special kind of love between a girl and her horse. Thanks for bringing these memories back to me this morning, it was a special time in our lives. Dottie

wow! what a lucky kid you were. I'm 60 and still waiting for my first pony. No one I know/knew had a pony as a kid. I did read every horse/pony book in our town library when I was a kid-always wanted to learn to ride and have my own horse. Never did, of course, people who live in the suburbs in twin houses simply don't have room for livestock--LOL. That's really cool that you lived that dream.

I never had my own. I didn't have to because there were about 100 ponies right accross the street in the pasture when I was growing up. I'd just go accross the street and jump on one and ride around the pasture bareback. LOL!

They would sometimes try to bite me. LOL!

Someone would come around the neighborhood and take a picture of kids on his pony. He'd dress you in cowboy gear. I still have the picture. I was probably about 5. Does that count?

Never had my own pony! I remember wanting one soooo badly when I was about 10. I thought for sure I'd get one on that birthday! LOL where I would've kept it, I have no idea. We had some farmland near by and someone kept old mangy shetland ponies on it. That's as close as I ever got.

I didn't even have a bicycle till I was fourteen. No pony, no place for one, not a single kid in my town had a pony or horse.

Moni

I would have killed for a pony when I was a kid. My friend ended up getting a small horse when she was in her teens and we had a blast riding bareback on that gentle horse.
My first horse came when I was 17 and she was too young and unbroke for me and tossed me on my back. Have been trying to get over the fear of riding ever since.
Kathy

When I was probably 14 my Dad bought me a horse, 16 hands. He was dark skinned with white hair, very pretty. We named him Stormy and he was five gaited. In 1949 I rode him in a Centennial parade in a small town about 12 miles away. I rode him there the day before and stabled him in a barn of a friend of my Uncle's and then went the next day and rode in the parade and then rode the 12 miles or so home. Great memories.

Sue

I grew up in a suburban town where only pets that could live in the house were allowed. I remember one family getting a pet duck, and they were fined and told to get rid of it.

If you owned a horse, you had to rent a stall in a private stable in another town, and it wasn't cheap.

Needless to say...I never had a horse, but a wealthy friend did.

I always wanted a Shetland Pony when I was a kid. Never got one. When I grew up I tried riding horses, but I hated it. Too high up and the seat was ubcomfortable.

I had one when I was growing up...She was a gorgeous black beauty and I called her "Beaut".....One day, the fellow came to trim her hooves and she reared up with the clippers on her hoof and when she came down, she broke her ankle and they had to put her down...After that, I never asked for another pony or horse although we lived on a farm...I'm now 73 and I remember that day like it was yesterday...I still visit her grave....

never had a pony or horse. I lived in the city. But I do remember the man who would come around with a pony and we would have our picture taken on it. I have one with my dog too. I have one of both my sisters on one also that was a long time ago

I grew up with horses and ponies and Mexican burros. I learned to ride on our old mare Sally, she was so gentle, I guess I was about three. I got my first pony when I was about 6 or 7, black and white, of course named her Flicka! My own first horse was a red paint I named Rusty. I loved him, but we had to sell him after my dad died and Mom sold the farm.

I didn't own a horse but there was a horse rental place in my town. My mom would drop a friend and I off at that place, we would rent the horses and ride back home to show them off. The horses were gentle and we had so much fun riding them. Now that I think about it, we started doing this in maybe 5th grade. Traffic wasn't bad back then.

I never got the pony. I decided that's why I've always had big dogs. It's kind of like having a pony galloping through the house.

Never had one. My cousins had a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, that was as close as I got. That dog was about the size of a small pony and sweet as could be!

Finally got to ride a horse when I was in my late teens. Loved riding but had to yell at my brother, he would not keep his horse in the trail line and my horse didn't like getting passed, lol. Only rode two horse in my life and probably will not ride again- herniated discs don't mix well with horseback riding!

One of the first books I remember reading was my mother's Easy Reader copy of "Black Beauty". My mother learned to ride as a girl in New England. She saw that I had riding lessons as a pre-teen -- just riding, not dressage or jumping. I loved it. I've also ridden 'Western' out in Jackson Hole at a friend's family ranch. (The thought of riding a horse today makes my legs ache! I don't think I can 'bend' that way anymore. LOL)

A neighbor keeps a horse and trap in a nearby stable. We often hear Fiona's clip-clop coming down our street. Lovely sight. This man also keeps polo ponies -- don't know if matches are scheduled in town this summer. (Poor economy has put a stop to some of these events.)

I received my first horse Gina, when I was 7 or 8. She was a bay mare and eventually had a filly. We had to sell them after a couple years because we were moving to the states. She was a good ol horse. We road all over the boonies and one of many memories was pulling up close to the fence next to the sugarcane fields and the workers giving us peeled sticks of cane. yum!
Marilyn, you certainly had the smallest pony ever! ;)

shoot! my parents wouldn't let me have a bike, lol...we lived on a very busy city street and they were afraid...

my mother had one growing up on a farnm in kansas...

We got a Welsh pony, Prince, when I was probably 9. He was also broken to harness and my Dad got a miniature buckboard from someplace and we used to have a great time riding in that. We also got other horses while we had Prince and my brother and I plus some neighbor kids would play cowboys and indians in the pastures. All in all we ended up with 11 horses at one time so it then became a chore to have that many.

I asked my Daddy to get me a pony. He said he would if we ever moved someplace where we could keep it. We never did, so I never got one.

But, here is a picture of me and my sister on a pony. I was 7, she was 9.

{{!gwi}}
Click to enlarge

Notice our Buster Brown haircuts. ;)

Sue

We were too poor to even think about having another mouth to feed.

I have really enjoyed reading about you and your horses or ponies. At some point in time, while I was still preteen I bought an Amish buggy for $10. I painted it yellow and Mother upholstered the seat in a bright red vinyl. I would hitch Babe to it and we would travel around. I liked riding better though. Babe was not broken to ride or drive when we got her as a yearling. I guess I am the one that taught her to let me ride and to drive her. Before I had Babe, I would ride my Uncle's pony that he bought for me to ride, her name was Queen. The first year after I was married my husband bought me a very pretty red horse with flaxen tail and mane. I named him Flame. We later sold him as we didn't have a place to keep him. If I were wealthy I would have a horse now, just to hug if nothing else.

Sue

My first pony was plastic and about 12" high.

I was one of those horse-loving girls, Black Stallion being my very favorite book. Dad used to take us horseback riding, and we rented the horses for $1 an hour. Then when I was 20 I bought my own horse, Caprice. Had a lot of fun with him. Had no idea how take care of a horse, but he survived in spite of me. We lived in a rural area and didn't have a flushing toilet, outhouse instead. We stored his grain there, and he would break into the outhouse to get into the grain. Bad Caprice!

Never had a pony or horse. They never really interested me much. The one time a bunch of us were at the cabin and the others decided to go horseback riding. There was a place that rented them and had trails. Well, I couldn't go on the horse because I was recovering from a broken hip so I wound up waiting for a couple hours, by myself, bored out of my skull, while they had a good time. Possibly the resentment of that set me off from horses, I don't know.

I do enjoy going to the races occasionally though and watching "Old Gluepot" run around the track.

Marilyn Sue,
I also had a pony named Babe! She was a Pinto, stubborn as heck! My grandparents bought her for me and kept her at their dairy farm as we lived "in town". I remember falling off a lot as I tried to get her to jump over a log and she would stop short! She taught me a lot and I still think of her today.
I was a horse-crazy girl, not boy-crazy, which probably made my parents happy. But unfortunately I never had another horse due to life getting in the way.
My dream is to get a rescue horse when I retire, as we have a couple acres, but DH would have to clear a lot of trees first.

It sounds as though you had a wonderful pony, but 14.5 inches tall! That's tiny. There is a lot of dogs bigger than that. I bet you meant someting else.

33 yrs is a very old age for a horse.

My first pony was black white with a black mane and body. I had to be careful when I was riding inside the house that I didn't knock anything off the coffee table with the stick end. :-)

Yee-haw!
Jodi-

Dad grew up farming with horses. When he finally got a tractor and got rid of the team of horses he swore there would never be another horse on the farm....ever. And there wasn't. My horse was exactly like the one jodi had.

Ron

I got my first horse for my 11th birthday. He was a bay gelding, an old cow horse, named Prince. Nothing fazed him. When you wanted to leave him somewhere, just drop the reins, and he would "ground tie"...wouldn't move from the spot. I used to ride with my friends, and they would tie their horses to my saddle and Prince would stand there and hold them all.

I could ride him with no saddle, bridle, halter...nothing on him at all. Used to ride him to the post office like that.
A lumberyard was next door and I would stop him next to some concrete steps on display for sale, and he would wait until I got back and got on and away we'd go. I used to ride him standing up...could do it at a lope too. My father nearly had a fit when he saw me doing that, and I had to stop...except when no one was watching.

A few years later, I wanted to raise a foal, and I saved up my money and bought a mare named Little Maude. She was supposedly in foal but she wasn't. A wealthy rancher friend of my family, kept her all summer one year to try to get her in foal to a Thoroughbred stallion he had named Dublin Star, but she never settled. She wasn't old....she was ancient.

My senior year in high school, I saved my money again and bought a big black, part Thoroughbred gelding. He was 16 and a half hands high. His name was Dan...and I added Collins to it, after my future husband. He was just green broke, but a wonderful horse. A few months later, Jody, my future husband, bought Trouble, a half Arab for my Christmas present.

When I married, I raised horses and had many registered quarter horses. I will always have a horse, and today I have four horses. Two of them are almost 30 years old, one is 19 and one is 7. Here is their picture.

I think that Marilyn Sue meant 14 and a half hands, which is the term used for measuring horses - at the front leg, to the top of the shoulder.

We had a couple of teams of draught horses on the mixed farm in Ontario, Percherons (gray), Belgians (bay/chestnut) and one a part Clydesdale ... but Dad was less enthused with them, as they had a lot of hair at the fetlock, and tended to get itchy there.

Gentle, friendly beasts.

We had one fairly lively young horse that Dad was a bit worried about us being close to ... when one morning he heard some kid frolicking in the horse stable, so came over to see what was going on. At least one of us was running around under this horse's body, running figure 8's, and swinging on his legs. The horse had his head turned, quietly watching us. Dad closed the door and walked away.

We sometimes rode them; bareback, of course.

ole joyful