Outside of Central Park, women took brisk morning rides along Riverside Drive. On weekends they ventured into the New York countryside for fox hunts. The appeal was exhilarating and, up to a point, for the classes of women who could afford the activity, empowering. As Belle Beach, who became one of the most well-known professional lady riders in this period, wrote so evocatively about riding for women, “. . . it is of all the exercises the one best adapted to keep them in condition, to restore the glow of health, and to key up the whole system to respond to all the delights of life.”
In the case:
Each object in the cases is marked with a corresponding number unless otherwise noted.
89. “Sunday Morning on Riverside Drive,” Harper’s Weekly (June 1, 1901)
Marra Collection
90. Woman with dogs, Harrison Fisher (1909)
Marra Collection
91. Horse blanket
Marra Collection
Vintage wool horse blanket in black and gold stable colors with the monogram of the stable name “Golden West Farm.” Such blankets served a practical purpose of keeping highly bred equine athletes warm, but their color and fine quality also showed off the owner’s identity and status, especially at public competitions.
Ladle
Marra Collection
Antique sterling silver soup ladle in the shape of a riding hat with a shaft modeled after a fox hunting whip. An example of the finer household items acquired by ladies of means who pursued the fashionably Anglophilic equestrian lifestyle and wanted to entertain and impress like-minded people in their social milieu.
Whip
Marra Collection
Vintage fox hunting whip with a carved antler handle and long leather lash. The whip was carried by riders in the fox hunting field to help direct the hounds and warn them away from their horses’ feet. The lash was never used to hit the animals but rather was cracked with a practiced flick of the wrist to stop or turn them with sound. The hunting whip was a potent tool for a woman to wield on horseback.