BACK TO THE HORSE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 13

BACK TO THE HORSE

Britain’s Riding Schools

We are going back to the horse—not for travel or for street cartage, but for everything that is pleasant and leisurely to look upon and to do, says a writer in the London Observer.

This year has glorified the horse. London, at the height of mechanical inset aside one day on which through its greatest and busiest traffic area no mechanical vehicle could pass. There was no higher dignity on Coronation Day than the dignity of horses—cloud dappled Windsor Greys, balletstepping cavalry mounts, quiet, broadbacked drum horses, massive, coachdrawing Percherons. Bank Holiday crowds, drifting shoulder to shoulder along Oxford-street, had to stand even more tightly pressed while shining, rosetted Shires and Suffolks from the Whit-Monday Cart Horse Parade in Regent’s Park pushed their deep-chested way, stable bent, across the traffic stream.

This parading of horses before us in defiance of speed and internal combustion is appropriate. It so happens that there is, at present, a revival in horsemanship more enthusiastie than even the most sanguine hoise lover would nave dared to predict a few years ago. The revival can even be measured,

with lair accuracy, in figures. Three years ago Mr R. A. Brown, secretary of the National Horse Association, be-

gan to keep a card index of riding schools throughout the country. Then he had some 400 to record. To-day his index shows over l, r OO, and that does not fix the total number of riding schools. Mi Brown thinks that there are probably close on two thousand. The number of stallions travelling lor service on the roads oi England, Wales, and Scotland has steadily increased since 1932. Last year 2.050 travelling stallions (thoroughbred stai■ions do not travel Tor service) were

licensed in England and Wales, IST more than in the previous year. Scotland also showed an increase. The Horse Owner’s Reference Book for 1937 has lists of over 900 events, most of them during the summer months, in which horses take part—• fixtures of every kind in every corner of our island, from Olympia’s International Show & country fairs nnd markets. Even London’s parades and shows are not, in proportion to her size, the largest m the country. On Whit-Monday, for instance, while six hundred horses paraded at Regent Bark, over four hundred were present at the Ealing Horse Parade alone. And they were only the finest in their respective classes. In a single county, Surrey, twenty-five gymkhanas will be held this summer.

But parades, shows and gymkhanai apart, the real reason for the return of the horse in affection and daily use is the new discovery of riding by ordinary people, town dwellers and office workers. There are small families living close to parks or commons in or near London who find it worth while to buy a horse and have it kept at some convenient stable. There art city typists who spend part of every week-end at some riding school in Surrey, Bucks, or Hertfordshire.

The growth of every kind of open-air enthusiasm during the past five years has helped. The public preservation of many stretches of open, rideable country has also helped. The Green Belt, for instance, is likely to become a great riding ring round London. There is riding land, and schools and stables fol those who use it, in almost every patch of heath or woodland, from Epping Forest to the Chiltcrns or from Windsol Great Park to Sevenoaks and beyond, that has gone to make the Green Belt,