Edinburgh Common Riding *pics*

Hammie

Hammie

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Jan 3, 2008
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Anyone else go to this today? Better still, was anyone in it?

For those outside Southern Scotland, this is a tradition in many borders towns, where riders check the boundaries of the town once a year. Edinburgh hasn't had one for over 60 years though - see
http://www.edinburghridingthemarches.co.uk/ for more info.

A very long day for the riders, but we just went to watch the last part in the town centre.

Coming through Holyrood park...
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I asked the kids to count the horses, but they weren't keen! Over 150 I should think.
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Standard bearers (nervous horses need not apply...)
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Heading up the Royal Mile - my fave horse:
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Lots of headshaking (I don't think the horse could see :))
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Love these two as well:
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View down the Royal Mile, with the sea in the background. If only it were always like this :):
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Question though, for anyone who knows - why so many men? Definitely overrepresented considering the ratio in the horsey fraternity!
 
:eek: I saw that..was trying to catch Ritchie just after they passed and he was having none of it!! His field is right beside the road so had seen all the horses go past and wanted to join them:rolleyes::D
 
They went through the yard very early this morning-think there was about 250! I missed it though,would have loved to have done it! Do you know the route they took?:)
 
cockerpony said:
WOW What cracking pictures.
I live in Fife and didn't even know that Edinburgh had a common riding
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Having looked at the riding of the marches web site (see first post), they had a one-off in 1946 and previously hadn't had one since 1718 - I'm guessing you're not that old ;) I think it was revived this year primarily as part of Homecoming year.

JOJOBA said:
You were standing right opposite me Hammie! How did I miss you??
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Guess we were both too busy looking at the horses!

ponygal said:
They went through the yard very early this morning-think there was about 250! I missed it though,would have loved to have done it! Do you know the route they took?:)
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Also detailed on the website. Started at Tower Farm, went out to the Pentlands, back to Tower Farm for a rest then into town.
 
Hammie said:
Question though, for anyone who knows - why so many men? Definitely overrepresented considering the ratio in the horsey fraternity!
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Fantastic photos Hammie! To answer your question, it's only very recently that women have been "allowed" to take part in the Common Rides. Even now in parts of the Borders it is still frowned upon to the extent that female riders are spat on by people at the side of the road:eek::eek::eek:

Soozy
 
They are not for the faint hearted let me tell you!!!

Galloping along with novices on riding school rented horses is a scary experience trust me I have done enough of them and I am soo glad I have surefooted horse lol!!!

They are great fun and I would recommend them to people but be aware most of it is across open land and at the gallop (I love those parts lol).

Grerat pics Hammie!!! Love the copmmon ridings were the highlight of my year!! Gutted I couldnt go this year!!

Nikki xxx
 
Yeah, I remember a fuss a few years ago about the Hawick one not allowing women - hadn't heard about the spitting! I'd have thought though that since the Edinburgh one has had such a long break it would be free from this stuff. Not that I'm planning on joining in any time soon!

Oh and using mud-on-bum as an indicator, more than one rider hit the dirt in the Pentlands...
 
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Fab Girl from my yard is on the spottie chestunt one 6th pic down :D she works for millers who were the main sponsers :D not her horse tho just hired for the day, but she said he was fab :D
 
It's mostly Hawick that's male biased

The main reason for male domination was each town got 4 places for principals. In most places that's Cornet, right hand man and left hand man. Then the 4th is likely to be Cornet's lass (Peebles, Duns, Innerleithen etc) or Acting Father. Of those only the Cornet's lass is female. Exceptions are Gala (hurray!), Musselburgh and Penicuik where the principal riders are 3 pairs of lad and lass. From these places the first 4 came - 2 male, 2 female. Hawick is the only place where females riding is frowned upon on the Friday. They point out that they do let the women touch the flag - which other places don't.

With it being the first year those "in the know" were in time to register before the 250 limit was full. This again meant a lot of ex-principals. In future I would expect more like 100 principles and 150 others with probably 100 local. This year it looked more like 200 principles/ex-principles with 50 others - maybe 25 local. Apparently the 250 limit was due to space for horsebox parking. I think they could easily have got 500 which would have allowed more ordinary riders.

Great to watch though and good party in the afternoon.

PS is Common Riding an "other discipline"? Should I have put comments there?
 
Ooh, good to finally see some pics! I didn't make it up to watch.

Didn't know anyone that was actually riding. I'm not sure if this is going to be a regular event now, or whether it was a one-off (to tie in with all the homecoming events).
 
Two liveries of my yard did the ride..... but not the whole thing, only from the yard to the end, not from the starting point.

there were 250 horses on it... and unbelieveably only 40 of those horses were privately owned.. the rest were RS horses, hired for the day.

Fab pics, my camera decided not to work that day!!
 
newrider.com
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