Horses in the Garden

Scarcely had the rodeo roughnecks wahooed out of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden when the gentlefolk of horsedom cantered in. Unmannerly broncos and bucking Brahman bulls were replaced by mannerly hunters and harness ponies, five-gaited mares that would no more buck than fly. The crowd was different too: vulgar cheers were taboo; from the Golden Oval of boxes came only polite applause, an occasional bravo that rang no rafters. With its black toppers, red tail coats and trumpets signaling the start of Manhattan's social season, last week the 63rd National Horse Show was in full swing.

The international competition was the keenest ever, the revived U.S. team facing the top equestrian talent of Brazil, Mexico, Ireland and Canada. Appropriately, Colonel Humberto Mariles, captain of the Mexican Army team, rode off with the show's first big award, the President of Mexico Trophy, for traversing a 13-jump course on three successive mounts.

A minor international incident flared up when Mariles protested to the judges because they allowed Ireland's Captain Michael Tubridy to cut inside a timing flag in winning the West Point Challenge Trophy. But when the Show's president, Brigadier General Alfred G. Tuckerman, proved that the flag was no course marker, Mariles ended by complimenting Tubridy for smart riding.

The U.S. equestrian team, now one & the same as the U.S. Olympic team, produced an added attraction: Mrs. Carol Durand, 33, the wife of a Kansas City insurance executive, and the first woman ever chosen as a U.S. Olympic team member. This week, against the world's best riders, Mrs. Durand got her third white ribbon (fourth place) in the International Jumping Stake.

But the hit of the individual entrants was Mrs. Loula Long Combs, 70, who has taken blue ribbons at every one of her National showings since her first in 1913. Rounding the show ring in her red-wheeled phaeton, with her smartly liveried footman sitting behind her on the dickey and her docked, high-stepping horses trotting in perfect rhythm, she took the harness pairs class, celebrated her 54th year of competition by winning eight other events in the hackney horse and pony classes.

Back home at Longview Farm in Lee's Summit, Mo., Horsewoman Combs spends much of her time in her stable, spoiling her horses and making pets of them. A devout member of the Disciples of Christ (she has her own chapel at Longview as well as a half-mile training track), she refuses to compete in a horse event on Sunday. At the National last week, Loula Combs was getting a special dispensation to befit her royal station: "The Garden has been so nice. They haven't scheduled any event of my class on Sunday, so I won't miss anything."

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