Horse-drawn rides delight

Getting pretty for the city ain’t always easy, especially for a pair of workhorses from Post Falls.

Manly Stanley and High Falutin’ are the kind of equines used to dirt, dust and debris – the usual grime that comes from hauling logs in the North Idaho wilderness. But during the holiday season, the pair spend their weekends in Spokane – all spruced up and spiffy, clip-clopping with bells through the streets of downtown.

Grooming them for these city sprees can take hours, said owner Bruce Spencer. Sometimes the horses get so dirty on the ranch that brushing them becomes an ordeal. “They’ve both been vacuumed with a shop vac before,” Spencer said, describing the horses’ primping ritual.

Manly Stanley and High Falutin’ have become an integral part of holiday festivities in downtown Spokane.

Each December, thousands of people wait in line to ride the horse-drawn carriage. The horses also have become a familiar sight to shoppers, businesspeople and other downtown regulars, who wave as Spencer guides the duo through the same three-block route dozens of times a day.

The free rides have been sponsored by the Spokane Teachers Credit Union and Downtown Spokane Partnership for four years. For the first time this year, Spencer’s wife, Donna, will take another carriage and a Clydesdale named Sarge to downtown Coeur d’Alene, where they will offer free rides on Fridays and Saturdays.

The six-person Coeur d’Alene carriage is situated between Santa’s headquarters in a shopping mall and the boat dock for rides to see the lights on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Both places provided a steady stream of children squealing “horsie, horsie,” when they caught a glimpse of Sarge. As the regal Clydesdale stepped along the streets, delighted children waved from passing cars.

Kaylee Raybould, a 5-year-old from Spokane, was mesmerized by Sarge during her ride and craned her neck around the carriage’s side to watch him. At the end, she declared the ride “fun,” and the best part “seeing the horsie.”

Megan Corette, who turned 5 around Thanksgiving, buried her face in her mother Kim’s side with delight when Donna Spencer and her partner Merrilee Remmick switched from Christmas carols to sing “Happy Birthday” to her during their horse ride. The Hayden girl’s smile grew as the ride went on.

“We get to see more than we do in our car,” Megan told her mother.

Moonlighting as carriage horses is a world away from Falutin’s and Stanley’s day job as loggers, said Judy Painter, who helps Bruce Spencer with the carriage rides in Spokane. “They go from being in the mountains to being in the city,” she said. “That’s kind of hard.”

They also have to get used to all the people. Although Stanley likes to be petted, Falutin’ is “not the sociable kind,” Painter said.

Every once in a while, a person will try to poke them in the nose or do something to spook them, Bruce Spencer said. Drivers on occasion might maneuver vehicles too close, squeal their tires or splash the horses with slush.

The biggest challenge, however, is the buses. “Cars they don’t pay too much attention to, but a bus that’s as big as a house going at 30 makes them nervous,” Bruce Spencer said.

The two horses were born two weeks apart – both are 11 years old and of the same breed, a quarter horse-shire mix or “two-bits shy,” in Bruce Spencer’s words. Falutin’ got her name because she had always been “a little high-faluting for my ranch,” he said. “The other horses didn’t like her, and she leaped the fence each time.”

He describes Manly Stanley as “the little muffin of our corral.”

Since the duo made their debut in Spokane four years ago, the Spencers have been taking them to parades, fairs and even a few weddings. While the horses are more accustomed to wilderness life – climbing hills, swimming rivers, hauling logs – they don’t mind the carriage too much, Bruce Spencer said. In fact, the job downtown is easier than the logging, but it does get monotonous. “They’re like teenagers – they get bored going around the same three blocks three days a week,” he said.

Folks often can’t resist the old-fashioned charm of a horse-drawn carriage, so Falutin’ and Stanley sometimes give as many as 170 people a ride every two hours in the 15-person carriage.

During the leisurely jaunts Saturday, Painter gave out candy canes to the kids and led the crowd as they sang Christmas carols.

“It’s become a family tradition,” said Julie Reid, of Spokane, who rides the carriage every December along with her three children and her parents who visit from Wenatchee. “We look forward to it every year. This is something the kids will always remember.”