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Bluegrass
A Kansas City business man raises Arabians as a hobby — the most beautiful hobby horses in the world.
by JETTA CARLETON
THE prophet Mohammed once made a two-week march with his attendants. During this time there was no water to give to the horses, until one day near the end of the two weeks the group arrived at the river. The horses strained toward the water, toward the cool relief to their great thirst. Just at the moment they reached the river the call to retreat was sounded. Of all the horses rushing to drink, only five heeded the call. They were five mares whose sense of duty and obedience was greater than their desire for water. These five mares of the prophet became the fountainheads of the five principal strains of Arabian horses.
At least, that's the legend, and indicative of the quality of the Arabian horse and the romance attendant upon him.
There are twelve million horses. in the United States. Only 2200 of them are pure Arabians. And Walter Ross owns twenty-one of these.
Walter Ross lives on a country place about 35 minutes out of Kansas City, and drives in to his office five days a week. He's connected with the Grolier Society, on the Board of Directors for the Encyclopedia Americana, and directs Beta Sigma Phi, international sorority for
young business women. He collects first editions and raises Arabian horses. And the horses are what he likes to tell you about.
It began when Mrs. Ross learned to ride a horse which her husband was supposed to ride for relaxation and exercise. Then Walter Ross took up riding. Then they passed through Pomona on a visit to California. In Pomona the United States Government keeps the largest existing herd of Arabian horses, given the Government by W. T. Kellogg.
The Rosses took a look at the Arabians; wrote back later asking about the purchase of a foal; were informed that the foal they wanted had just been sold to the Prince of a foreign country. That did it. "I was hooked," Walter Ross said, "by the -omance of the thing."
Now he raises romance on a Missouri farm— eighty acres of grassland spotted with modern hay barns, brick stables, and a mellow old Victorian house complete with a couple of pillars. Here, only a farm or so removed from the land that belongs to President Truman, run the beautiful horses whose connotations are sand and moonlight, dusk-purple pyramids, and Arab chieftains who look like Rudolph Valentino.