I come from what you would call a fairly working class background. My mother's parents were factory workers and cleaners throughout their lives and my dad's father was a car mechanic. Not exactly part of the elite. My dad's best friend was a builder with a big interest in horses, and they bought a pony for their kids to share. We kept him in the garage and tethered him on waste land, and so began my journey into the world of the 'privileged.' As the years went by we acquired more horses and ponies, often freebies that were other people's rejects, and with each new pony my dad and his builder mate put up another garage in the garden, often got for free from Loot, free to whoever took it away. We got our bedding free from the local sawmill, rode to the vets to avoid callout charges, and had to make use of whatever turnout space we could get for them - which included the kinds of places most horse owners would not dream of keeping their horses. My sister and I held down lots of little jobs like paper rounds and babysitting to pay for them.
So, basically, I reckon you can be horsey either by the injection of large amounts of cash or incredible amounts of hard work and dedication - a fact some people who would declare it to be 'for the few' sometimes neglect to recognise.
Wind forward a few decades, and I reckon I now have a job which truly puts me among the elite as a direct result of learning to be committed to something, something which having horses on a shoestring taught me when I was younger.
I have many memories of riding with my best friend over the bridge to Bransholme council estate to gallop around with the estate kids who would ride their ponies bareback. We were considered posh there. We used to ride around Orchard Park council estate too, as there were good grass verges for a gallop there 
We'd often be raced by kids on their souped-up mopeds. Clearly council estate ponies are still around - here and here are a couple of recent articles.