Pubdate: Wed, 05 Oct 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Corey Kilgannon
Note: Read about Howard's historic journey at http://leap.cc/howard/index.html
Cited: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.leap.cc
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Wooldridge (Wooldridge, Howard)

BACK IN SADDLE, PREACHING DRUG LEGALIZATION

After blowing into town yesterday on a one-eyed painted pony, a lanky 
Texan named Howard Wooldridge looked a bit beleaguered.

He had just arrived in Manhattan from the West Coast, but not on the 
red-eye, having left Los Angeles on March 4 on horseback and riding 
some 3,300 miles to New York. He rode, he said, about 25 miles a day, 
six days a week.

Mr. Wooldridge and Misty, his 11-year-old pony, took the Broadway 
Bridge from the Bronx and rode down the West Side on Broadway.

He wore dirty jeans, three neckerchiefs and a dusty Stetson. His arms 
were sunburned and his face weather-beaten.

His bedroll was tied behind his saddle, and a bag of carrots stuck 
out of a saddlebag. He held Misty's reins in his chamois herder's 
gloves. He ambled down the sidewalk nodding to passers-by and using 
greetings like "Howdy" and "Mornin'."

Mr. Woolridge, 54, a former police officer in Michigan and seasoned 
horseman, made the trip to gain publicity for his campaign to 
legalize drugs, the same reason he and Misty rode from Georgia to 
Oregon in 2003. As mothers pushing strollers came up to pet Misty, 
Mr. Wooldridge handed out cards with the name of a group he helped 
found, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

His T-shirt bore this slogan: "Cops Say Legalize Drugs. Ask Me Why." 
His tales from the trail included one about a near collision with an 
Amish family in a horse and buggy near Amsterdam, N.Y., and another 
about falling asleep with Misty in the grass in front of a Wal-Mart 
in Oregon, only to have a team of police officers surround him.

"They said: 'Don't move. Is that horse dead?' " he recalled. "They 
said they had just gotten a call that a cowboy killed his horse and 
was sleeping next to it."

He stopped regularly for speaking engagements. After riding Misty to 
Denver, he was joined by a friend with a mobile home bearing a "Cops 
Say Legalize Drugs" sign, and pulling a trailer that housed another 
horse to give Misty a rest.

He often stopped at farms and stables to let the horses feed. He said 
that every day, each horse ate 10 pounds of grain and 15 pounds of 
hay, and drank 20 gallons of water. His horse would canter two miles, 
then he would dismount and they would walk for one.

Yesterday, in front of the Broadway Presbyterian Church at 114th 
Street, he met Diane Hill, 47, who works as a business manager at 
Columbia University. Drugs should be legalized, he said, "to keep 
them away from your 14-year-old child and to stop building prisons 
and stuffing them full of black and brown people."

Ms. Hill nodded in agreement and declared his evangelical method "old school."

On Broadway, some people barely noticed the horseman, while others 
pointed cellphone cameras at him.

Since traffic did not yield to the cowboy, he walked his jumpy horse 
in tight circles at red lights and finally led her into Central Park 
to let her graze in the Ramble woods. Then they galloped down to 
Columbus Circle and headed into Times Square, where Mr. Wooldridge 
came dangerously close to a showdown with the Naked Cowboy, the 
muscular man who strums a guitar for tourists wearing only his underwear.

He saw Mr. Wooldridge and Misty and yelled, "You got to bring her over here." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake