A Boy Has Got to Have a (Rocking) Horse

BY JANA BOMMERSBACH A CHRISTMAS PONY

You can almost smell the coffee. It's been brewing to bitterness all day on the potbellied stove in the oneroom bunkhouse. By now only a rock-gut cowboy would think of drinking it, but you just know the pot will be drained before the night is over.

You can surely smell the paint. It's the only thing here that smells like new. You know right away something significant is afoot when you enter a room smelling of paint, and it takes only a second - even in the dim light provided by a single kerosene lamp to see the treasure being covered with this odor of newness.

It's 11:00 P.M., the night before Christmas, 1956. We're somewhere outside Prescott, Arizona, probably in Skull Valley.

Hank is sitting on the floor, braiding a piece of rope he salvaged from the barn. By tomorrow morning his old bones will feel pain from these contortions, but he won't notice.

Jim is teetering on a prune box, trying hard to steady the artist's brush in his right hand.

But what you notice most is the look of intense concentration on their faces faces far more used to spying an errant calf than a hunk of wood that's been fashioned into a toy.

No, toy really isn't the right word. Not with all the weeks of time that have gone into it; not with the late-night session to finish it up before the most important deadline of the year; not with the care that two crusty old cowboys are devoting to the project.

Toys are disposable, imminently breakable amusements.

This is a work of love.

This is a rocking horse for the boss' child.

Jim is trying hard to get the Appaloosa spots just right, and it will be hours before he realizes he's dripped paint all over the place. Hank knows he's got to get the bridle perfect because any self-respecting rancher's kid deserves authenticity for his first pony. And they both know that any cowboy worth his ration of beans would never surprise the family with such a present if it didn't look pretty darn close to the mounts in the corral.

You have to wonder when it was that Hank found the perfect old log out in the woods that he whittled down for the body; or how many times Jim banged his thumb as he made the miniature saddle worthy of a museum. You wonder if these men ever disagreed about how to proceed and why they decided to paint the rockers red and where Jim got that artist's brush in the first place.

But it takes no great imagination to see the face of the boy who's going to forget everything else on Christmas morning to devote all his attention to this gift.

Every father who's watched his son take to a rocking horse will still be able to hear the "giddy-ups" and "whoas" that filled the house for so long.

Every mother who's seen the first flicker of independence on her child's face as he mounts his steed will still be able to see the black marks it left across her floor.

And how many shy but proud cowboys stood by, uttering up some "shucks" as they were praised for the workmanship that brought such joy.

Our guys were busy some 37 years ago. But guys just like them did the same thing 137 years ago. And people who would never know about the West or even some new world called America did the same thing in their own way 2,037 years ago.

What is it about rocking horses that has made them one of the world's oldest and most loved toys?

It's not just the size, although this was the largest toy a child could expect until it was time for a wagon or a bike. It's probably not the craftsmanship, although some horses were incredibly elaborate and carved by masters for kings; kids seldom notice such things. It's certainly not because it's "hot" that's reserved for the latest RoboCop or turtle nonsense.

But there must be something about rocking horses that has appealed so universally so long. Louise Phippen thinks she knows what it is. Just as she thinks her late artist/husband knew when he painted Hank and Jim and their Christmas task for the cover of Western Horseman in 1956. George Phippen named the picture The Boss Has a Young 'Un.

A Christmas Pony

Continued from page 31 "There's a freedom with a horse," she says, sitting near the original painting in Prescott's Phippen Museum of Western Art. "It's the pioneer spirit. With kids, everything is running there's a joy and thrill of running. They can imagine great speed with a rocking horse. Besides, very few children don't love horses." Her own five children loved horses, too, but the closest they came to a rocking horse was the image in the picture their father painted. "The horse the cowboys are painting is very much like the plans George drew up for a hobbyhorse when our first son was born during World War II," Louise recalls. "George was always going to build a horse for our children, but he never got around to it. But every time we'd hike in the woods, he'd be on the lookout for the tree trunk for the horse body."

The painting captured a piece of American life in the West, she adds. "There were always a lot of hours to while away on a ranch after the work was done," she says. "Cowboys always liked to whittle; it was something they could do on those long nights." Her husband originally sold his painting for $500. After his death in 1966, Louise decided she wanted it back. "I couldn't afford it when it was four figures," she recalls. By the time she could afford it, it had gone up yet again. "I've got standing offers to buy the painting for five figures, but not in my lifetime," she says. "I love it because George put so much of his history in it. He painted cowboys making a rocking horse because he had such a feeling for children and what they liked. He used composites of his friends for the cowboys. On the wall is a Brown and Bigelow calendar that has the first picture he painted for them. On the floor is the Messenger that was our weekly paper in Prescott at the time. The saddle on the horse is like the ones he made for our boys."

Louise Phippen doesn't claim to be an expert on rocking horses, but she understands their appeal just as well as those who are. Like Phoenix antique dealer Vic Cresto, a longtime collector. "I think they've remained popular because they appeal to so many fond childhood memories," Cresto says. "Every child wants a pony; every child dreams of the day when he's mobile; every child loves having something substantial to call his own. Imagine how many dreams were fulfilled while riding a rocking horse.How many mountains were crossed; how many rodeos were ridden in. "And big kids have the same motivations big kids like adults who now spend

34 December 1993

small fortunes to have an authentic rocking horse. I'm one of them. I love the craftsmanship, the details, the nostalgia they conjure up. You just look at a beautiful antique rocking horse, and you feel better. And if any tear comes to the eye, it's when the child takes the last ride on the horse before going on to the next phase of his life."

Nancy Kangwanshirathada, owner of the Antique Gallery in Phoenix, says there's another factor that made these toys so prized: "This was a toy that didn't have the regular toy shape. It was shaped like something kids could relate to. It was like being part of the adult world to have a hobbyhorse because adults had horses." The leading authority on the subject is British writer Margaret Spencer, whose book Rocking Horses is the most complete guide to the toy. As she writes, "From the time when the first horse was tamed, man has loved this splendid creature with its great strength and speed, patience and obedience "As soon as the life of early man became sophisticated enough to allow the children, especially those of the rich, to have time to play, playthings appeared, and as children love to ape their elders, it wasn't long before the hobbyhorse evolved "On these toys children could sit and copy rich adults. They could let their imaginations run free, even if they themselves were tied to their mother's apron strings. The toy horse was solid and big for a small child, and, like a real horse, it had 'presence'." Spencer has found that this fascination began centuries ago. Paintings from ancient Persia and China show beautiful examples of rocking horses. The first true rocking horse in England appeared in 1610, supposedly as a gift for young Prince Charles I as he recovered from rickets. Spencer says the first toy horses no doubt were just sticks that children would put between their legs and gallop along.

6 (The purists insist on calling these sticks "hobbyhorses" to distinguish them from the later form mounted on rockers.) But soon master craftsmen were carving elaborate Clockwise from bottom left (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 32 AND 33): an American shoofly rocker, built about 1915; part of the collection of Second Hand Rose Antiques/Vic Cresto/Phoenix, Arizona. A small swinging horse, made in New York about 1890; R. Roy Branchville, New Jersey. An American Glider made about 1910; Second Hand Rose. A large horse that makes a leaping motion, made in New York; Maryann Miller, Scottsdale, Arizona. Also from the Second Hand

lockwise from bottom left

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 32 AND 33): an American shoofly rocker, built about 1915; part of the collection of Second Hand Rose Antiques/Vic Cresto/Phoenix, Arizona. A small swinging horse, made in New York about 1890; R. Roy Branchville, New Jersey. An American Glider made about 1910; Second Hand Rose. A large horse that makes a leaping motion, made in New York; Maryann Miller, Scottsdale, Arizona. Also from the Second Hand Rose collection, a German pull toy built about 1910. A German-made wheeled brown mohair horse, previously mounted on rockers, in the family of Robert Miller, Scottsdale, since 1907.

ALL COURTESY CARLTON'S PHOTOGRAPHIC ALL heads and manes on horses with straight legs, usually attached to a solid platform or wheels. Children's demand for "action horses" led to rockers and horses that seemed to be in full stride.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Spencer writes, "the rocking horse's popularity had grown so much that it had outstripped all other types of toys and stood supreme as king of the nursery."

Craftsman Anthony Dew, who has written a book titled Making Rocking Horses, thinks it's no mystery why this toy became king. "A child will develop a much more intimate relationship with a rocking horse than with the large impersonal playground swings or seesaws," he writes. "A rocking horse can be a very real friend to a lonely child. He possesses, for the younger child, many of the qualities of a real horse with none of the drawbacks. He never needs feeding or exercising on frosty winter mornings. He can look after himself and doesn't mind occasional neglect. He never needs to be 'mucked out.' And he is absolutely tireless; always ready to take the child rider on the most exciting, yet secure, imaginative gallops."

By 1900, Spencer reports, hundreds of factories in England were making commercial horses but the very best carvings were still coming out of Germany and its Black Forest area, which already had a centuries' old tradition of outstanding horses. There's no record of how much the king of England paid for the horse for his recovering son, but one could guess. (Even an authority like Spencer isn't absolutely sure this story about the ailing boy is true, but she surmises that many think it must be because he became a superior horseman a model goal for any proper English lad, and certainly for any future king.) Spencer even suggests that England's terrible weather might have contributed to the popularity of the toy. "With our damp climate making travelling so difficult in the past, rocking horses provided a pleasurable way to practice riding indoors."

America played no second fiddle when it came to this toy.

If you were buying hobbyhorses back in 1897, you most certainly shopped through the Sears, Roebuck catalog. For just $1.80, your child could have owned a "patent swing horse:" 18 inches high from floor to saddle, nicely trimmed, with mane and tail made of real hair.

As an extra selling point, the catalog offered this note to parents: "This horse requires very little strength to operate, and for that reason is a decided improvement over the old style rocking horse." Of course if you wanted a horse 22 inches high, and "trimmed in a superior manner," you'd have to fork over $3.25.

A Christmas Pony

Sears, which never put all its hopes in one toy horse, also offered a "shoofly rocker" for just 75 cents. Or if you wanted to get fancy, a "swinging shoofly rocker" for $1.80: "Easy to operate, no danger of child falling out; nicely upholstered in cretonne and painted dapple gray." With this style (obviously for younger children), two painted horse frames held up a wooden seat, with the entire contraption perched on rockers. This style never did catch on much in the West - too sissified for both the boys and girls who had the real thing out in the corral. While many fine hobbyhorses were mass produced in the United States the swing-stand was invented by Philip Marqua of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1878-the nost prized examples of American horses are those that came out of bunkhouses. Or the barn. Or the wood shop.

Craftsman Dew, who has hand-carved hundreds of rocking horses in his career, believes a real rocking horse "like Granny used to ride" must be made of wood, not the molded plastic of the Wonder Horses that became so popular in the 1940s, nor the tubular steel horses still now available. "Rocking horses should be individuals," he writes. "How can a rocking horse be individual when it comes out of a mold? No, it must be wooden and hand-carved." His book shows exactly how to do it.

"Rocking horses are very collectible," says Terry Kovel of Beachwood, Ohio, whose antique guides and newsletters are among the most authoritative. "The antique ones are so expensive because there are a lot of people who want them," she notes. "It's a sentimental thing. Maybe they had a hobbyhorse as a kid and want to keep those childhood memories. But maybe they didn't have one as a kid and always wanted one."

So don't blanch if you find a lovely wooden thing in some antique store somewhere probably missing some of its "real horse hair" mane and chipped from use and see a price tag in four figures.

If you're really fortunate, someday you might happen upon an Appaloosa with shiny red rockers and a fine miniature saddle that two old cowboys made with love the Christmas of 1956 for an unnamed young 'un. And if you do, while you imagine the smell of coffee and paint, you'll have to wonder how anyone could ever have given up this treasure. M