1977: A look back
It was the dawn of the Information Age, and disco was king. And a new magazine promised to help reshape how owners cared for their horses. What else was happening in 1977?
It was the dawn of the Information Age, and disco was king. And a new magazine promised to help reshape how owners cared for their horses. What else was happening in 1977?
In Presidents occupied 40 years, the have seven Oval progressed Office, from technology clunky has calculators to sleek smartphones—and one magazine dedicated to the care and keeping of horses that made its debut all those years ago is still going strong. Back then, you might have gone to the barn in your bell-bottom jeans and plaid shirt. You wouldn’t have heard of “natural horsemanship,” and the bins in your feed room may have held little more than unaltered grains, with no supplements in sight. You’ve come a long way, baby. Here’s a look back at some of the landmark events of 1977 in American culture as well as the horse world.
JANUARY 20, 1977: Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th President of the United States.
JANUARY 23–30, 1977: An estimated 130 to 140 million viewers— more than half of the population of the United States at the time—tune in to watch Roots, a miniseries chronicling the multigenerational experiences of a slave family in the United States, based on the novel by Alex Haley.
JANUARY 28, 1977: A blizzard hit the lower Great Lakes Region and raged for 25 hours, bringing with it high winds, massive drift formation, prolonged whiteout conditions and windchills between 40 and 60 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. By the time the storm was over 29 people had died and seven counties were declared disaster areas by the President—the first time that had happened due to a snowstorm in the United States.
MARCH 28, 1977: The movie Rocky wins Best Picture at the 49th annual Academy Awards.
MAY 7, 1977: Seattle Slew wins the Kentucky Derby, the first leg on his trip to claim The Triple Crown. The only horse to win the Crown while undefeated, Slew earned a total of $1,208,726 during his racing career, with 14 wins and two second-place finishes in 17 starts. He sired 1,094 foals, including A.P. Indy, 1992 Horse
of the Year, and Swale, winner of the 1984 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. Seattle Slew died in 2002 at the age of 28 at Hill’n’Dale Farm near Lexington, Kentucky.
MAY 25, 1977: With little fanfare, a science fiction film opens, and within weeks, fans are lining up in droves to see the original Star Wars dozens of times over. Since then the franchise has seen nine feature films that have grossed more than $7 billion worldwide, plus multiple television series, video games, books, comics and a host of other products.
JUNE 15, 1977: In the Youthful Stakes at New York’s Belmont Park, a 2-year-old colt named Affirmed beats the favorite, Alydar, in the first meeting of what would become a storied rivalry. Affirmed and Alydar faced each other in 10 races in 1977 and 1978 with Affirmed winning seven times. Affirmed captured the 1978 Triple Crown, and Alydar finished second in each of the three jewels.
JUNE 1977: Apple Computer releases the Apple ll, the first mass-produced personal computer available to home users. ( The Apple l, released in 1976, was hand-built with a wooden case.) The Apple ll was one of three introduced that year: The TRS-80, from Tandy Corporation, was released for sale to the public in August 1977, and the Commodore PET followed in October. All measured their available memory in kilobytes, from four to 96 KB.
JUNE 27, 1977: Velma Bronn Johnston, also known as “Wild Horse Annie,” dies in Reno, Nevada, at the age of 65. Her advocacy for wild horses in the American West led to the passing of the Hunting Wild Horses and Burros on Public Lands Act of 1959, which banned the hunting of wild horses from motorized vehicles, and the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which enacted further protections and banned the sale of wild horses for slaughter.
JULY 1977: Yellow Mount, a foundation sire of the Paint Horse breed, earned his fifth National Championship in Get of Sire. His 219 registered foals include four Supreme Champions as well as multiple world and national champions. A portrait of Yellow Mount, by Orren Mixer, has been widely used to promote the breed.
JULY 3, 1977: The first MRI on a healthy human body is produced by Raymond Damadian, a Brooklyn physician and researcher who built the scanner with the help of two medical students.
JULY 30–31, 1977: Hal Hall and El Karbaj, an 11-year-old Arabian gelding, place first in the 23rd Western States Trail Ride, better known as the Tevis Cup. Their total time for the 100-mile ride was 14 hours and 15 minutes. Hall rode his first Tevis in 1969 at the age of 14, and he was one of the cofounders of the American Endurance Ride Conference ( AERC) in 1972. In 2013, Hall became the second rider to complete the Tevis Cup 30 times. El Karbaj, who completed the Tevis Cup ride more than 10 times, was named to the AERC Hall of Fame in 1978.
AUGUST 14, 1977: Governor Brendan T. Byrne signs a bill declaring the domestic horse to be the state animal of New Jersey.
AUGUST 16, 1977: Singer Elvis Presley, 42, is found dead at his mansion, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time of Presley’s death, Graceland was home to five horses, including his favorite, a palomino Quarter Horse called Rising Sun.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1977: In the first heat of the Hambletonian Stakes, Green Speed posts a time of 1: 55 3/ 5 for the mile, breaking the world record for a 3-year-old trotter. Then he does it again, taking the second heat in an identical time to claim the Hambletonian victory. In all, Green Speed won 16 of 21 starts in 1977, setting 13 records. The son of Speedy Rodney retired with career earnings of $ 953,013, but his career at stud was cut short when he died in 1983 at the age of 9.
SEPTEMBER 1977: All Things Wise and Wonderful, by James Herriot ( a pen name for British veterinary surgeon James Alfred Wight, OBE, FRCVS), debuts at number eight on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Sellers List. Third in the series behind All Creatures Great and Small and All Things Bright and Beautiful, the book was the top-selling nonfiction title of the year. In his books, Herriot shares his experiences as a practicing veterinarian in Yorkshire.
OCTOBER 1977: When Gai Parada is named U.S. National Championship Stallion in 1977, he becomes one of only a handful of Arabians to win national titles in both halter and performance classes: In 1974, the gray stallion earned a double National Championship in Pleasure Driving, and during his career he also earned titles in English pleasure. Gai Parada sired 459 foals, many of whom earned national titles of their own, in multiple disciplines.
NOVEMBER 1977: EQUUS magazine debuts. In the first issue, the founding editors promise that the magazine will serve “as a bridge between the veterinarian and horse owners, bringing to our readers the expertise of the nation’s leading authorities on the care and maintenance of their animals.” That first issue featured articles on purchasing blankets, caring for wounds and a Case Report titled “Doubles and the Lump,” which told the story of a jumper who underwent surgery to remove a strange mass near his shoulder.
NOVEMBER 4, 1977: In a jump-off with the British team, the United States Equestrian Team wins The Nations Cup at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden. It is the third consecutive Nations Cup win for the U.S. show jumpers, after clinching the BMO Nations Cup in Calgary, Alberta, in September and the Nations Cup at the Washington International Horse Show in late October. The U.S. team in New York includes Conrad Homfeld on Balbuco, Michael Matz on Jet Run, Buddy Brown on Sandsablaze, and Rodney Jenkins on Idle Dice, led by coach Bert de Nemethy.
NOVEMBER–DECEMBER,
1977: Peppy San Badger wins the National Cutting Horse Association ( NCHA) Futurity in 1977 and the NCHA Derby in 1978. In total, he earned $172,710 in his cutting career, and he became a prolific sire. In 19 seasons, he sired 2,325 AQHA-registered foals, who earned more than $ 25 million in various disciplines. The sorrel stallion died in July 2005 at the age of 31.
DECEMBER 1977: After placing fourth individually and helping to win the team bronze in dressage at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal with owner/rider Hilda Gurney, Keen is named USDF Horse of the Year in 1977—the third of five times he would earn that title. The chestnut Thoroughbred gelding was retired before the 1980 Olympics due to an injury, but he recovered enough to return to competition, and at the age of 18, he placed 14th individually at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.