Years back, before cars with big horsepower raced along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the thoroughfare featured actual horse power on a bridle path that extended along the Rodeo median north of the city to Sunset Boulevard and on to the ocean.
Celebrating horses and equestrians, past, present, and future
Before cars with big horsepower raced along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the thoroughfare featured actual horse power on a bridle path that extended along the Rodeo median north of the city to Sunset Boulevard and on to the ocean.
Early photos show equestrians under a rustic wooden archway reading "Ye Bridle Path from Bevely Hills to Sea and Mountains." Now, Beverly Hills plans to commemorate the city's history with an equestrian parade and a preview of the city's coming centennial year which will kick off on January 28, 2014.
The area was once part of a 4,539 acre rancho owned by Maria Rita Valdez, who sold it in 1854, when it became an area dotted with hundreds of acres of cabbage, lima beans and other crops. In the early 1900's housing development began. The Beverly Hills hotel opened in 1912 and offered riding stables and riding classes for children.
Fox hunts were held around the hotel grounds and a number of celebrities owned estates with stables and used a system of trails in the surrounding hills.Will Rogers, the cowboy humorist joined local developers in creating the bridle path to the sea.
Next Sunday, horses will be back in town for the Rodeo de los Caballos parade along Rodeo Drive. The Wells Fargo stagecoach, the Scripps Miramar Saddlebreds equestrian group and other equestrians will join the parade with Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, the great grand daughter of Will Rogers as the Grand Marshall.