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Show t HORSES IN HEBER VALLEY When you drive into leber Valley, one of the beautiful and enjoyable iights will be the number of lorses you see gracing in this beautiful valley There are over 1 ,000 personally owned horses or almost one horse for every six people. The majority are quarter horses along with some arabian and appoloosa. Most horses are used for pleasure, show and sport and with this many horses, you can expect the normal "amount of riding clubs and horse shows. In the West, however, you get a lot more with horses, including rodeos, drill teams, cutter recing. riding stables, horse ranches and a real reason to wear western riding gear. Wasatch High School has its own Rodeo Club and there arc other young people's riding groups sponsored by 4-H, Future Farmers and civic groups. Each year in June there is a big county rodeo for young people plus the state high school championships, for rodeo is a high school sport out here. All this with rodeo queens, parades and all the glamour that goes with a western rodeo. Then, of course, there's the big time rodeo held at fair time where western professionals profession-als compete for prizes and praise. In the winter there is cutter racing. Aside from all the excitement excite-ment and glamour is an inborn love for horses reminiscent of times when a horse was the only means of moving about the Valley. ' Horses were downright important and essential for the pioneer and the care and love for horses was as much a love for animals as a love for existence. Horses took kids to school over paths too deep in snow for some youngsters young-sters to walk. They did the marketing, fetched the doctor and hitched to a sleigh in winter to pull the family to church, which, in this Valley was a lot more than just once a week. In summer, they plowed the field, pulled the harvester and gave the power to the winches. They pulled the scrapers that dug the irrigation canals that caused caus-ed the crops to flourish. Yes. horses were very important to the Valley pioneers and today the people of Heber Valley do not forget their importance. Today, however, there" is little need to work the horse and the animal is raised as an animal to enjoy and a source of pride. |