BACK TO THE HORSE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 178, 14 August 1937, Page 15

BACK TO THE HORSE

Britain's Riding ScHools ' ' ■ • ^

We are going. back to the horse — not for travel or for street cartage, but foi everythjng that is pleasant and leisurely to look upon ahd to do, says a writer in the London Observer, This year has glorified .the horse. London, at the height of mechanical invention, set aside one day on which through its greatest and busiest tpaffic area no mechanical vehiele could pass. There was no higher dignity on Coronation Day than the dignity of horses — cloud dapp|ed Windsor Greys, balletstepping cavalry mounts, quiet, broadbacked drum horses, massive, coachprawing Percherons. Bank Holiday crowds, drifting shoulder to shoulder along Osford-street, had to stand even more tightly pressed while shining, rosetted SUires and Sulfplks from tfie Whit-Monday Cart Horse Parade in Regent's Park pushed their deep-chested way, stable bent, across the trafiic stream. This parading -of horses before us in defiance of speed and Internal combustioju is appropriate, It so happens that there is, at present, a revival jn horsemauship more Enthusiastie than even th© niost sauguine horse lover would fiave dared to predict a few years ago. The revival can even be measured, with fair accuracy, in figures. Three years ago Mr R. A. Brown, secretary of the National Horse Associa,tion, began to keep a card indes of riding schools throughgut the country. Then he had some 400 to record. To-day his index shows over 1,600, and that does not fix the tofcal number of riding schools. Mr Brown thinks that there are pirobably , close on two thousand. 'fhe number of staliions travel ling for service on the roads of England, Wales, and Scotland has steadily increased since 1932. " Last year 2,050 travelling staliions (thoroughbred stailions do not travel for service) were

i licensed in England and Walea, 157, more than in the previous year, Scotland also showed an increase, The Horse Owner's Reference Book for 1937 has Usts pf pyer 900 pventa, most of them during tfie summer months, in which horses take part— fixture's of every kjnd in every corner of our island, from Olympia'a International Show to country faixs and «arkets. Even London' a parades and shows are not, in propwtion to her size, the largest in the country, On Whit-Monday, for instance, whBe six hundred horses paraded at Regent Park, over four hundred were present at the Ealing Horse Parade alone. And they were only - the finest in their reapective classes. In a eingle county, Burrey, twenty.five gymlthauas will he field this summer, But parades1, shows ah fi gymkhanai apart, the real reason for the retum of the horse in afiection and daily use is the new discovery of riding by prdinary people, town dwellers and pffice workers. There are small families Hvring close to parks or commonB |n er uear London who find it werth while to buy a horse and have it kept ©.t some convenient stable. There are city typists who epend part of every week-eijd at some riding school in Surrey, Bucks, or Hertfordshire. The growth of every kind ^ p$«a-*air enthusiasm during the past five years has helped. The public -preservation «f many stretches of open, rideable oountry has also helped. Th© Gr©en Belt, for instance, is likely to become « great riding ring round London. There is riding land, and schools and stables for those who use it, in almost every patcb of heath er woodland, from Epping Forest to tlie Chilterns or from Windsor Great Park to Sevenoaks and beyond, that has gone to make the Green Belt,