Urban Cowboys

Tyheed and Abdul (13 and 11) riding well-kept urban quarter horses provided by Al Lynch. They are wearing anti-gun violence T-shirts Photo by Sarah Nassauer of the Wall Street Journal.


I don't know if you've ever seen Google maps' street view feature, but check out this view captured of West Cambria St. and N. 17th.

The urban cowboys of Philadelphia are a long-standing, but increasingly threatened, tradition, here. You can read an interesting article about them that was published in the Wall Street Journal. The slide show is particularly interesting (I've borrowed the above image from it)--such lovely horses! One can only hope that the new mayoral adminstration will be friendly to the equines and their owners (and maybe even bring back the mounted police).

Horseback-riding and equine husbandry programs have long been used to remedy the plight of urban youth (one notable example is the Kentucky Horse Park's Mustang Troop), and therapeutic riding programs have demonstrated the healing and healthful effects of human-horse contact. So, why be in such a hurry to drive out these wonderful equine Philadelphians?

The road to the future is not a superhighway, or a cul-de-sac lined with tract mansions, or a new block of condominiums--it most likely is a bridle path.