Horse ride through RVA on Fool's Day

Frisbee-golf wizard Larry Rohr in Byrd Park

Writing with a whimsical air veteran scribe Bill McKelway documents a group’s horseback ride through town on the warm afternoon of April Fool’s Day. The group was the Friends of the Richmond Mounted Squad. Their 14th annual ride benefited the City of Richmond’s mounted patrol. See below for an excerpt of McKelway’s piece for the Richmond Times-Dispatch (which mentions my friend and fellow Frisbee-golfer Larry Rohr). Click here to read “Horse ride raises funds, puzzlement.”

“...Richmond’s mounted police are a familiar sight. But dozens of horses moving through the city herdlike is something else.

“‘Some of the people acted like they'd never seen a horse before,’ said 14-year-old rider Alex Burgess, from very un-Richmond-like King William County, after the four-hour trip.

“‘Is this part of the 10K?’ wondered a Fan District resident yesterday behind William Fox Elementary School as distant flashing lights from police cruisers signaled the arrival of some amorphous delegation from the east. And there was this from sidewalk stroller Bill Pahnelas: ‘I thought it was a hostage situation.’

“At the Carillon, Larry Rohr and his band of Frisbee golfers, a Sunday fixture there since 1975, looked up from their tossing to see the horses pass. ‘It’s a lovely site,’ said Rohr, who carried a satchel of 13 Frisbees. ‘We see them every year.’”

Photo: SLANT