A horse in Woonsocket? Of course.
Every once in a while in Woonsocket, you come across something you don’t expect... something like seeing Mark, the quarter-horse in his corral off Cumberland Hill Road.
Mark, or Mark Tradition if you want his full name, is owned by Camille W. Pepin, the vice president of Pepin Lumber on Cumberland Hill Road.
The 19-year-old show horse is “fairly friendly and doesn’t mind people,” his owner noted this week.
Of course he does have his own riding field and barn off Bozoian Street, site of the Pepin family’s stable for many years.
Mark might be the last horse residing in Woonsocket at the moment but Pepin said on Friday that wasn’t the case in the past. The Pepins have owned a number of horses over the years, and Pepin recalled that a neighbor, the late Gus Ayotte, a city mayor, city council and school committee member, also had a horse there years ago. Pepin’s late father, Camille E. Pepin, built the horse farm back when he was developing the family’s lumber yard business back in 1947, his son noted.
When he was growing up and in school, Pepin said he would ride horses as his favorite exercise and recalled taking horses to ride in the vacant land in the nearby industrial park off Cumberland Hill Road. “I would ride two different horses for two hours,” he said.
Pepin still does some riding even today but also serves as a judge for show horse competitions around the country. “I’ll be judging at 12 horse shows this year,” he said.