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Boys Surf, Girls Ride. Biggest boost for riding has been the discovery that you don't have to be a millionaire to own a horse. Not only are fashionable hunts riding with bigger fields, but even polo is making a comeback. There are now 94 polo clubs, 31 of them less than ten years old and many composed of one-or two-pony players. "It's no more expensive than golf," points out Player Bob Crawford of Hamilton, Mass. "All you need is a couple of mallets and a hard hat." And even secretaries making $85 a week are discovering that they can buy a horse for as little as $150, feed and board him for $700 a year, or less than it costs to maintain a car.
Most enthusiastic horse fanciers of all are teen-age daughters. Jim Little, who has 700 students at the Pegasus-Meadowbrook Stables in Maryland, notes that "19 out of 20 are girls or women. I think the reason for so little interest by boys is that they have so many sports, girls have so few." Kansas City Riding Instructor Jan Dickerson confirms that 80% of her students are girls. Says she: "Boys think riding is a matter of brute strength. Girls are gratified that they become good riders through developing their skills and fine sense of touch." Adds Carol Metzger, 40, of Portuguese Bend, Calif., whose daughter Katie, 8, rides the family's Welsh pony Blue Jay: "All the boys around here surf, all the girls ride."
"He's my best, truest friend." It is not that boys are not fond of horses. The last thing Victor Esch Jr., 10, does before he goes to bed in Potomac, Md., is shine a spotlight out of the window to be sure his pony Misty is all right. But girls are more lavish with their affection. "He's my best, truest friend," says Mary Jay Harrigan, 8, who spends her afternoons after school in Colebrook, N.H., riding her 21-year-old chestnut gelding Ahab the Arab. When Sue Ann Meyer returned home from camp to her parents in Lincoln, Mass., she barely said hello before heading for the barn to see her Indian pony Tidbit. Recalls her mother: "We found her sitting on the fence, an arm around Tidbit's neck, telling him everything that happened at camp."
With love goes responsibility, and it is here that the girls really shine. The four Meyer daughters have taken over the family's two horses, get up early to feed and water them. And, whereas boys often buck at mucking out stalls, notes Mrs. Carol Meyer, "the girls don't argue about it, they love the horses so." The same was true of Cindy McAfee in Louisville; her parents bought her an Appaloosa, Tonka, for her 14th birthday and were delighted when she took over all the chores. "It's wonderful for a girl of her age," says Mrs. McAfee. "I'd much rather have her horse-crazy than boy-crazy at this age."
Families in Transition. With pampering comes primping. There is no end to which teen-age girls will not go, from shampooing their mounts' tails and fixing them with hair set to employing liquid shoe polish to cover up especially stubborn stall stains. All decked out, a horse must have some place to go, and one answer is the U.S. Pony Clubs ("Our Little League," says one mother). There are also the full-fledged horse shows, now almost weekly events in areas where there were once only three a year.