Horse People
Scenes from the Riding Life
Chapter OneMy Kingdom for a Horse
The Statistical Abstract of the United States, a bottomless compendium
of useless facts, indicates that there are over 5 million
households owning a horse or horses in America today, and
that the total horse population is, give or take a few horses,
about 13.5 million.
That seems like a lot of horses in a country where most people had
already made the switch to the automobile by the end of World War I,
and in which horses -- with a few exceptions like police horses, or carriage
horses in places like New York's Central Park, or among the
Amish -- are no longer working animals, strictly speaking.
When I was a boy in England, the milkman had a horse that not only
pulled his milk wagon but knew enough to stop at every house to which
he delivered milk on his route, and fresh fruits and vegetables were
hawked from horse-drawn carts, but all of that is long since gone. Even
on cattle ranches, the horses are more ornamental and traditional than
useful these days.
At the same time, horses aren't exactly pets, like dogs and cats. For
one thing, they don't live in the house, or even visit it. However domesticated the horse is, he's ... read full excerpt from: Horse People ebook
