Untacked

C H R O N O F H O R S E . C O M FA L L 2 014 63 W hile the 1973 Central Park Mini-Show was the first of its kind in that location, it wasn't a first for the borough. ree-quarters of a century earlier, in 1899, Manhattan Field in Harlem mounted a weeklong competition. Originally a home for the displaced New York Giants (then a baseball team), Manhattan Field was known col- loquially as "the Polo Grounds," a reference to the earlier ballpark, converted—as the name would imply—from a polo field. After development forced the closing of the origi- nal Polo Grounds, located in the northeast corner of Cen- tral Park, the stadium moved to 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. Besides jumping and breeding classes, the horse show at the Polo Grounds included special exhibitions of foxhunting (a scent was laid, the horn sounded, and the hounds were off, trailed by a set of huntsmen) and carriage driving. Initially conceived to be an annual event, the show be- gan and ended that same year. A headline from the May 16, 1899, New York Times may provide a hint: "A RUNAWAY ON THE TRACK: Mr. Hoffman's Team, Driven by John Skellington, Unmanageable—Driver Hurled From His Wagon." and basketball court to a show ring, combined with other logistics like shipping and unloading horses, unions, con- structing temporary stalls, and leading horses up and down flights of ramps, became too burdensome and too expensive. Practicality prevailed over tradition in 1989, when the National moved to the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It returned to the Garden for a brief time, from 1996-2001, then for a six-year period its prestigious equitation final, the ASPCA Maclay [see p. 96], split from the show. In 2002, the class was staged at the Washington Interna- tional Horse Show (D.C.), and in 2003 and 2004 it was held at New York's Pier 94, at what was dubbed "e Met- ropolitan National Horse Show," while the National itself moved to Wellington, Fla. In 2008 the NHS reunited with the Maclay in Syracuse, N.Y., and they moved to Lexington, Ky., three years later. "In the new Millennium, the National has been obliged to become an itinerant—a victim of Madison Square Garden's bottom-line priorities and the horse's declining role in our thoroughly mechanized culture," said Steinkraus. "Today the National and the Maclay are both ensconced at the Kentucky Horse Park, where they stub- bornly cling to a considerable measure of their traditional prestige in the equestrian world. e National may not be 'the Garden' anymore, but it still ranks high among the survivors of a very challenging era for equestrian sport." e Big Apple On Horseback But Manhattan has still pro- vided a rich backdrop for a variety of other equestrian endeavors over the years. In 1914, a 12-mile endurance race began in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, wound through Cen- tral Park and ended in the show ring of Madison Square Gar- den, then located at 26th Street and Madison Square Park. In 1997, Rockefeller Plaza hosted an "Equine Extrava- ganza" to promote the National Horse Show, and in 2012, eventer Buck Davidson and his four-star mount My Boy Bobby made an appearance in Times Square to promote equestrian THE HORSE SHOW IN HARLEM The short-lived horse show on Manhattan Field in Harlem, circa 1899. While the stands were mostly empty, spectators can be seen lining Coogan's Bluff, which loomed over the venue and afforded a free vantage point for the masses. MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK/BYRON CO. COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES PHOTO

• Cover