COOLIDGE TO MAKE HORSEBACK RIDING A MORNING RITUAL
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On August 16, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge announced that he would "very shortly start (horseback) riding every morning or so."
The Evening Star reports the President left the Willard Hotel shortly after 6 a.m. and "walked briskly to the White House stables at 16th & B Streets.
There he was shown several prospective riding horses from which he selected "General," a big chestnut bay gelding, who had been ridden by President Warren G. Harding.
JFK+50 NOTE
Many presidents have enjoyed horses and riding. George Washington was known for his well-kept stables. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were horsemen as well as Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Grant, Hayes, Cleveland, McKinley, and TR.
William Howard Taft, however, had the carriage room at the White House converted into a garage for his automobiles.
Among the modern POTUS, Eisenhower, LBJ & Ronald Reagan were horsemen.
John F. Kennedy, not so much so, although Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was an accomplished equestrian. She chose "Black Jack" to be the riderless horse symbolic of the fall of the nation's leader to walk behind her huband's caisson in the funeral procession.
SOURCES
"President Makes Horseback Riding Favorite Exercise," The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., August 16, 1923, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
"Presidents Throughout History and Their Connections to Horses," by Marcella Gruchalak, Horse Nation, February 1, 2023, www.horsenation.com/
