RIDING FOR BEAUTY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 892, 8 February 1930, Page 28

RIDING FOR BEAUTY

“KEEPING SLIM” CRAZE IN LONDON

The horse has become the friend of woman. He is helping her to grow slim and preserve her beauty. Riding is the new health and beautycraze. So popular has this form of exercise become that Rotten Row, once so exclusive and fashionable, is in danger of suffering from overcrowding, reports the London “Daily Express.”

It is no longer an elegant playground of the leisured rich. It is a resort of hard-working, hard-playing men and women. An hour's riding a day keeps the doctor away—or so the new enthusiasts believe.

Women in great and rapidly increasing numbers have taken to riding because the exercise tones them up and brings the colour back to their cheeks after a late night better than any amount of tonics and massage, and because it is so quick and successful as a means of slimming. Men take an hour’s riding instead of a liquid pick-me-up the morning after a night before. Dozens of business men are in the Row between eight and nine every morning before going on to work.

One of the principals of a firm that hires out a great many hacks for the Row talked to a “Daily Express” representative about the new craze.

“Women are the greatest enthusiasts,” he said, “and children come next. They are not at all good riders as they might be. "I wish they were, for the sake of the horses, but there is no arguing with them. Some of them have never ridden before, but they insist on going into the Row as soon as they feel confident they can stay in the saddle. “I believe the popularity of riding is due to the great desire everybody has nowadays to be fit and healthy. A good many middle-aged, men go in for it to keep their weight down. “Women prefer it to dancing and skating as exercise, because it is quicker and is out of doors. “I really feel alarmed sometimes when I see the number of people leaving these stables for the Row. Between eight and nine and between ten and twelve-thirty the Row is frequently too crowded for comfort.”