(Front) “Bucky” Reynolds and Kimbrough Nash, MFH, out with the Warrenton foxhounds / Douglas Lees photo
Famed horseman J. Arthur “Bucky” Reynolds died Monday, July 24, 2017, after a long illness. He was seventy-eight.
Bucky grew up in Tryon, North Carolina. His father J. Arthur Reynolds, Sr., a native of Orange, Virginia, was huntsman of the Tryon Hounds at the time. Both Bucky and his sister Betty Reynolds Oare grew up foxhunting and showing. Reynolds, Sr., a professional horseman, ran his own boarding and training facility. Bucky and his sister learned to ride under their father’s instruction, and both siblings helped break and train the sale horses as children. Each of the three—father, son, and daughter—have been inducted into the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame.
“It’s a huge honor,” said Bucky at the time of his induction just a year ago. “The family connection makes it a very special recognition, and following my father’s footsteps has always been the path I’ve planned.”
The three, plus Betty’s husband Ernie, are also in the Virginia Horse Shows Association Hall of Fame. Bucky trained out of Waverly Farm in Warrenton, Virginia and Merryweather Farm in Jeffersonton, and recently had been operating out of EMO Stables in Warrenton. He was a long-time foxhunter with the Warrenton Hunt and the Old Dominion Hounds, and taught local show riders and pony club students for many years.
Douglas Lees photo
Bucky has officiated at every major horse show in the U.S. He’s trained and ridden winners from New York City’s Madison Square Gardens to Wellington, Florida, and hundreds of events in between. For more than seven decades, Bucky Reynolds was a leading light on the nation’s hunter-jumper circuit.
During his junior years, Reynolds had lessons with the legendary Gordon Wright, who helped teach him the importance of style, and later with A.E. “Gene” Cunningham, who taught Reynolds the value of patience in the breaking and training young horses.
Bucky majored in English at Wofford College, but intended to return to horses. “I always knew what I wanted to do,” Reynolds said. “And that was to be in the horse business. There was no question about that.”
One of the circuit’s top riders, he placed in the Maclay equitation finals and won championships across the nation before the family returned to Virginia. Father and son set up a training stable together, then Bucky Reynolds struck out on his own.
Perhaps one of the most memorable show hunters of all time was a horse named Gozzi that Bucky bought out of a group of Thoroughbred yearlings he’d been assigned to break for the racetrack. As a three-year-old, Gozzi competed with Bucky at three-foot-six-inches, which is practically unheard of now. Then, as a four-year-old, Gozzi contested the three-foot-nine-inch and then four-foot divisions.
“Gozzi was National Horse Show Champion four times at the Garden,” recalled Bucky with a hint of nostalgia. “Bernie Traurig said he was the best hunter he ever rode.”
In addition to Hall-of-Famer Gozzi, Bucky also developed Hall of Famers Stocking Stuffer, Navy Commander, and Estrella. He showed his father’s horse Steve’s Poppet to win the Cartier Grand Prix of New York. “That’s something I’ll never forget,” Reynolds said. “I owe my parents everything for making this all possible.”
Just a year ago, Bucky had more than one hundred days of judging lined up for 2017. He and wife Linda, also a prominent show judge, still rode and taught when at home. It is an exhausting schedule, Reynolds said, but something he loves. “I don’t want to retire…I like what I’m doing too much,” he said.
There will be a celebration of Bucky Reynolds’ life at the Warrenton Horse Show (August 30 to September 3) at a date and time to be announced.
Posted July 28, 2017