The horse has long since been pushed off the highways, and a decade ago it looked as if he might have lost out on the backways as well. There were 4,500,000 horses in the country in 1959, the year that the U.S. Department of Agriculture took its last horse census and decided to discontinue counting heads.
The Department quit at just the wrong moment; since then horses have staged a surprising comeback, now total more than 7,000,000, of which 85% are saddle horses. Nor has the demand by any means peaked. Nearly every breed is still on the increase, from Tennessee Walking Horses (91,000) to Shetland ponies (119,000). Arabians — the currently chic horse in many places — stood at 16,015 in 1959; today there are 46,266 registered in the U.S. and Canada. The Appaloosa, the unusually spot ted horse that got much of its vogue from Walt Disney’s 1966 Run, Appaloosa,Run, has climbed in the U.S. from 11,000 to 92,500. The American quarter horse, still the nation’s most popular breed, expects to top half a million this year, and Thoroughbreds are not far behind.
No longer is horseback riding restricted to traditional horsy enclaves, dude ranches and city bridle paths; it has now massively infiltrated suburbia and even spread to blue-collar areas, where a new status symbol, instead of a second car, can be a stable alongside the garage. In Rolling Hills, on Los Angeles County’s Palos Verdes Peninsula, there are now 2,000 people and 4,000 horses. In Kansas City, teen-agers ride their horses through the streets after school. In Lakewood, Colo., an unprecedented 1,100 horsemen turned up for this year’s Easter parade. In California alone, horse owners this year will spend $200 million equipping and feeding their mounts; nationwide, the cult of the horse may top $4 billion this year.
Hard Hat & Breeches. “Our whole American civilization is built on the horse; it’s part of our heritage,” says Los Angeles’ Don Burt, who was voted best horse judge in the U.S. last year. “As we get more citified, there’s more demand for release, for open spaces. Now that people can afford horses, it’s bound to grow.” Increasingly, families are discovering that a brisk morning canter is not only fine exercise; it also opens up new country—even in relatively built-up areas.
Riding also seems to answer some deepseated, atavistic urge. Movie and TV westerns have kept alive the picture of the cowboy as a heroic figure, and many first-time owners, especially men, prefer to ride Western. But such tack is not for the upwardly mobile. For the ladies, the model is Jacqueline Kennedy astride her bay gelding Winchester, while the daughters as avidly keep track of Caroline’s every outing with her ponies Macaroni or Leprechaun. Sniffs a Boston dentist, whose whole family rides English, outfitted in boots, breeches and hard hats: “After all, if you ride, you should dress for it. You really can’t get the feeling of it in sneakers and jeans.”
Boys Surf, Girls Ride. Biggest boost for riding has been the discovery that you don’t have to be a millionaire to own a horse. Not only are fashionable hunts riding with bigger fields, but even polo is making a comeback. There are now 94 polo clubs, 31 of them less than ten years old and many composed of one-or two-pony players. “It’s no more expensive than golf,” points out Player Bob Crawford of Hamilton, Mass. “All you need is a couple of mallets and a hard hat.” And even secretaries making $85 a week are discovering that they can buy a horse for as little as $150, feed and board him for $700 a year, or less than it costs to maintain a car.
Most enthusiastic horse fanciers of all are teen-age daughters. Jim Little, who has 700 students at the Pegasus-Meadowbrook Stables in Maryland, notes that “19 out of 20 are girls or women. I think the reason for so little interest by boys is that they have so many sports, girls have so few.” Kansas City Riding Instructor Jan Dickerson confirms that 80% of her students are girls. Says she: “Boys think riding is a matter of brute strength. Girls are gratified that they become good riders through developing their skills and fine sense of touch.” Adds Carol Metzger, 40, of Portuguese Bend, Calif., whose daughter Katie, 8, rides the family’s Welsh pony Blue Jay: “All the boys around here surf, all the girls ride.”
“He’s my best, truest friend.” It is not that boys are not fond of horses. The last thing Victor Esch Jr., 10, does before he goes to bed in Potomac, Md., is shine a spotlight out of the window to be sure his pony Misty is all right. But girls are more lavish with their affection. “He’s my best, truest friend,” says Mary Jay Harrigan, 8, who spends her afternoons after school in Colebrook, N.H., riding her 21-year-old chestnut gelding Ahab the Arab. When Sue Ann Meyer returned home from camp to her parents in Lincoln, Mass., she barely said hello before heading for the barn to see her Indian pony Tidbit. Recalls her mother: “We found her sitting on the fence, an arm around Tidbit’s neck, telling him everything that happened at camp.”
With love goes responsibility, and it is here that the girls really shine. The four Meyer daughters have taken over the family’s two horses, get up early to feed and water them. And, whereas boys often buck at mucking out stalls, notes Mrs. Carol Meyer, “the girls don’t argue about it, they love the horses so.” The same was true of Cindy McAfee in Louisville; her parents bought her an Appaloosa, Tonka, for her 14th birthday and were delighted when she took over all the chores. “It’s wonderful for a girl of her age,” says Mrs. McAfee. “I’d much rather have her horse-crazy than boy-crazy at this age.”
Families in Transition. With pampering comes primping. There is no end to which teen-age girls will not go, from shampooing their mounts’ tails and fixing them with hair set to employing liquid shoe polish to cover up especially stubborn stall stains. All decked out, a horse must have some place to go, and one answer is the U.S. Pony Clubs (“Our Little League,” says one mother). There are also the full-fledged horse shows, now almost weekly events in areas where there were once only three a year.
“They’re mostly ribbon chasers,” says Kaye Edmondson of the 150 youngsters (only ten of them boys) whom she trains at Valley Farm Stables in Pacific Palisades, Calif., where she watches them go through their junior horse shows every other week. “The whole horse business has changed,” says her husband Lee, a former broncobuster. “Twenty or 30 years ago, showing was for the rich. Now English riding, hunting and showing have become tremendously popular with everyone.”
Typical of the family in transition are the Robert Mitchums. Movie Actor Mitchum still keeps a ranch full of quarter horses, saddles them up Western style, as do Ronald Reagan and, on occasion, Bob Hope. But Mitchum’s daughter Trina will have none of this riding-the-range bit; she’s gone off and bought her own hunter, which she rides and shows English style. Nor is she alone: until five years ago at Valley Farm Stables riding was predominantly Western and casual; now, suddenly, 70% are using English saddles.
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