PrintHe’s officiated at every major horse show in the United States. He’s won championship honors at the National Horse Show and the Grand Prix of New York, but for James Arthur “Bucky” Reynolds II, horses haven’t been about accolades, so much as they’ve been a way of life.
“We had a house on the stable property, and we spent a lot of time there—helping take care of the horses and doing whatever needed to be done,” said Reynolds about his childhood farm in Tryon, N.C. “I loved it. I couldn’t wait to get home from school in the afternoons to go and ride. That was my whole lifestyle.”
Reynolds’s father, J. Arthur Reynolds Sr., was a professional horseman who ran his own boarding and training facility and taught his son and daughter, Betty (now Betty Oare), how to ride. It was under his father’s tutelage that Bucky first got his feet wet in the horse business.
“My sister and I grew up foxhunting and showing. It wasn’t to the extent that a lot of children do today because most of the horses that were suitable for my sister and I to ride had to be sold to make the whole business go,” recalled Bucky. “I rode anything that I could throw my leg over, but our father was very protective of us. If the horse wasn’t suitable for us, we didn’t get to ride it. I appreciate that now because luckily I came out pretty unscathed.”
Role Models
After graduating from high school, Bucky attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., where he majored in English and taught a few lessons on the side.
“Teaching those lessons helped me earn enough money to buy a car,” said Bucky, who used the automobile to make the 25-mile trip home to Tryon on the weekends to help his father run the farm.
“I always knew what I wanted to do, and that was be in the horse business. There was no question about that,” he continued. “I went into business with my father, and although it went well, after two years I decided I’d like to try it on my own.”
But before he left North Carolina, Bucky showed his father’s horse, Steve’s Poppet, in the Cartier Grand Prix of New York, which was then held at Madison Square Garden.
“It was a great thing to ride my father’s horse,” said Bucky, who took home the blue ribbon. “It was something I will never forget.”
Reynolds Sr. isn’t the only one Bucky credits with his success over the years. Lessons with the legendary Gordon Wright as an adolescent helped teach him the importance of style, while A.E. “Gene” Cunningham taught Reynolds about breaking and training young horses.
“[Gene] was one of the best horsemen I ever knew. He was a wonderful person and a tip-top horseman,” Bucky said. “When I moved to Warrenton in 1960, he was living there and actively involved in the horse world. I spent three or four days a week just watching him work with the horses. He was amazing because he didn’t seem as if he did much with the young horses.“
As Bucky recalled, Cunningham’s barn manager would bring him a new horse every 20 minutes because at the end of that time he would stop unless there was something going very wrong.
“I learned a lot of patience from that. You know young horses have a certain attention span, and once you go beyond that you’re not doing any good anyway,” said Bucky, who’s trained great champions such as Henry
The Hawk, Flashlight, Mr. It and Stocking Stuffer at his Merryweather Farm in Warrenton, Va., using Cunningham’s techniques.
