By Clare Tone
Feature photo: the author riding Clooney, circa 1974
The year was 1971 and a five-year-old girl was growing up in love with horses in the suburbs of Chicago.
She hadn’t yet started weekly horseback riding lessons with her sister, those would start next year. She was shy and butterflies darted in her stomach every time she thought about horses, which was almost every minute of every day. Across the country that same year, in a beautiful hamlet on the brink of a tumultuous transition from rural to cosmopolitan, 110 residents of Boulder County gathered on February 7th at the National Bureau of Standards to form the Boulder County Horsemen’s Association (BCHA).
Perhaps it was no fluke that BCHA came into being in what is known today as The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST on South Broadway in Boulder. This is the place that houses the clock by which all clocks in the country are set. A clock that has ticked just shy of 1,576,800,000 times to mark the near fifty years BCHA has done its important work of promoting, protecting and unifying the equestrian community of Boulder County through education, recreation and legislation.
Fast forward to 2020 and that little girl is now 53. She can’t help but imagine back to February 7th, 1971 wistfully, picturing 110 people gathered at NIST dressed in flowing flower-patterned shirts and high-waisted bell bottom jeans nearly obscuring dusty cowboy boots. Although her imagination has always run a little wild she knows one thing for sure: If it weren’t for those dedicated original BCHA members that night, and the countless other volunteers who have advocated, fund-raised and maintained miles of trails tirelessly during the course of these past 50 years, her life would be very different today.
Even the lives of people rushing to and fro along the highways skirting the front Range foothills or hiking the Open Space trails would be different in ways that would be impossible for them to put their finger on. How would the perceptions of young families encountering friendly riders on their beautiful steeds along the Open Space trails be different if they never had the chance to see a horse under saddle?
What would those sweeping views west to the Boulder flatirons or out to Longs Peak be like without the open agricultural lands protecting—at least in places now—those world-class views? Views often taken for granted by racing motorists and cyclists glancing up while waiting at a stoplight sipping their coffee or sports drinks.
Unfortunately for humankind it’s often only in the absence of something that our appreciation grows. Fortunately for Boulder County residents and visitors, a bedrock of 50 years of work has been laid down by BCHA members enabling the motorists and cyclists to glance up for that hallowed view before the light changes and they race on.
In the more than one and a half billion seconds that have ticked by on the NIST clock since the inception of BCHA back in 1971, it’s undeniable that change in all its pain and glory and has come to Boulder County. But what would that change have been like without the efforts of those original 110 BCHA members and the countless others since them to rein in the persistent pull of progress? I hope you will join me—the grown up version of that little horse-loving girl—as I explore the historical benchmarks of BCHA while it gallops toward it’s 50th anniversary in February 2021. Sit back and fill your cup half full, because while there are many pressing issues still ahead, here in this column we’ll explore the success stories of people, policies and events of the past in order to better appreciate the ground we stand on. A chance to honor and smile at the important work done by the BCHA community who have made it possible for all of us to get back in the saddle for another glorious ride in our beloved Boulder County.
Clare Tone is a BCHA Board member and freelance writer living in western Boulder County. In this monthly column leading up to the 50th anniversary she will explore the rich history of BCHA.
Do you have stories or photos from BCHA’s past?