A good read that’s a fun ride

As much as a new year is a time for looking ahead, it also is an opportunity to look back and enjoy a bit of nostalgia.

For me, what filled the bill on the latter perspective was “The Outside of a Horse,” a book of recollections by Steven D. Price.

The subtitle is, “MyLlife On, Off and Around Horses,” which covers a lot of ground for this retired book editor/author, who enjoyed more than the horses during his involvement in the equestrian world for nearly 70 years. The characters he met, the places he visited, all come alive with his winning writing style. If you didn’t know them before, you will after you read the book.

Steve was someone I often would see at the National Horse Show or in Wellington, Fla., the “Winter Equestrian Capital of the World.” A keen observer of the equestrian vista and the people he met around horses, Steve always had a reminiscence or a tale to tell.

I suggested he should write them all down at the very least, or better yet, compile a book. That’s what he did, and I have been remiss in not doing a story about it until now, because it wears so well that there did not appear to be any urgency in telling my readers about it.

But finally, with my new year’s resolution not to procrastinate, I have gotten around to it.

The volume is peppered with names you’ll recognize, even though many have moved into the mists of history. Steve mentions his encounters with Gordon Wright, the great trainer who was an icon of the sport in the mid-Twentieth Century; former U.S. Equestrian Team show jumping captain Bill Steinkraus, a close friend; Alexander Mackay-Smith, the longtime editor of the Chronicle of the Horse as well as a founder of the U.S. Pony Club and the U.S. Combined Training Association; Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Joy Slater, the steeplechase jockey/jumper rider with whom he wrote a book.

Among the others who will ring a bell with my older audience, and perhaps a few of the younger readers, too, are Victor Hugo-Vidal, whose resonant voice echoed through Madison Square Garden in the days when he announced the National Horse Show there, “bon vivant” Mason Phelps, founder of the International Jumping Derby, and the toast of the show jumping scene, Rodney Jenkins, with whom Steve was supposed to write a book, but it didn’t work out. Ditto trainer/artist Ronnie Mutch, whose illustration graces the cover of the volume.

Steve noted there are those who have called him “the Zelig of the horse world.” Zelig, as portrayed in Woody Allen’s 1983 movie of that name, was an “ever-present and often inconspicuous figure” at major historic events.

For his part, Steve was apt to turn up anywhere on the equestrian landscape, from the National (at several different venues), chatting at the ingate with Harry DeLeyer of Snowman fame and being on hand for the 1978 World Three-Day Eventing Championships, which made the new Kentucky Horse Park a destination.

Steve was an amateur rider. Not amateur, as in amateur-owner hunters, but a hobby horseman. He started riding, the same way so many others have, at camp. In the 1950s, that was a whole different experience.  Seat-of-the-pants sums it up. No one bothered with a hard hat (helmets were not in the picture until years later) and lace-up shoes with heels sufficed for those who didn’t have boots.

But the joy of those days, even with the difficulties of learning to post in a western saddle, left Steve with a lifelong love of horses and riding. It was the seed for moving on, to training with Kip Rosenthal, as well as adventures that included bit of low-key showing, and fox hunting in Ireland. Then there was the time that he almost ran into Great Britain’s Prince Phillip on the dance floor during at party at the 1983 FEI World Cup Finals in Vienna. What could be more Zelig?

His first book, in 1972, was “Teaching Riding at Summer Camp,” even though he was far from an expert. That set the stage for the dozens of volumes he would produce, from a hunter/jumper manual with Anthony D’Ambrosio, now best known as a course designer, to the story of the Budweiser Clydesdales and “Riding for a Fall,” a polo primer.

He was involved in the production of “Thou Shalt Fly Without Wings,” the welcoming video that greeted visitors to the new Kentucky Horse Park’s museum, which opened after the 1978 championships.

Steve also produced an equestrian mystery, a la Dick Francis, but set in the horse show milieu rather than racing.

Have a good time sharing Steve’s adventures, including his involvement with a Japanese businessman’s Arabian operation at a Kentucky farm, where several Mongolians who didn’t speak English came to check out the horses. Hilarious.

He also fulfilled a lifelong dream by riding in the Grand Entry at a Texas rodeo, 65 years after he first clambered on a horse at camp. His life reads like a great fun ride.

If you want to join in vicariously, the book can be ordered at https://www.blurb.com/b/10564104-the-outside-of-a-horse.

Oh, and about the title: It’s from a famous quote, attributed to Churchill and others: “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”