The End of the Cavalry
By 1950, my family had been involved in horse sports for more than 30 years. Remember that Olympic equestrian sports were the realm of the military until 1952 when I tell you that my father, a U.S. Army officer, had ridden on the U.S. show-jumping team at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and was non-riding reserve rider at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. (This connection would come full circle almost 50 years later at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where I would be the non-riding reserve on our eventing team.)
When this photo was taken in the 1920s, my father, John "Gyp" Wofford, was a young first lieutenant stationed at Front Royal, Virginia. His position demonstrates the influence of Harry Chamberlin’s teaching and writing, which transformed U.S. Cavalry equitation beginning in the mid-1920s. Daddy has the ball of his foot slightly deep into the stirrup with his heels down and the sole of his boot turned slightly out. There is a 90-degree angle behind his knee, and his upper body posture is what would be expected of a young officer: slim and erect, with his shoulders slightly ahead of his hips. We would have seen a very different picture 10 years earlier, when an officer would have been in
