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"They're mostly ribbon chasers," says Kaye Edmondson of the 150 youngsters (only ten of them boys) whom she trains at Valley Farm Stables in Pacific Palisades, Calif., where she watches them go through their junior horse shows every other week. "The whole horse business has changed," says her husband Lee, a former broncobuster. "Twenty or 30 years ago, showing was for the rich. Now English riding, hunting and showing have become tremendously popular with everyone."
Typical of the family in transition are the Robert Mitchums. Movie Actor Mitchum still keeps a ranch full of quarter horses, saddles them up Western style, as do Ronald Reagan and, on occasion, Bob Hope. But Mitchum's daughter Trina will have none of this riding-the-range bit; she's gone off and bought her own hunter, which she rides and shows English style. Nor is she alone: until five years ago at Valley Farm Stables riding was predominantly Western and casual; now, suddenly, 70% are using English saddles.