Horse people
“8” at 80
Ingenious, original, and influential, the visionary founder of cowboy dressage grew up on Hollywood westerns.
BY ELIZABETH KAYE MCCALL
Life can surpass the best of fiction, particularly with someone like Eitan Beth-Halachmy, founder of cowboy dressage. Called “8” by his friends, he first came on the radar of many horse enthusiasts for his performances in the opening ceremonies of the 2006 and 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games, where hundreds of thousands of fans flocked to Aachen, Germany, and Lexington, Ky. Over the last 10-plus years, there has been explosive growth and a worldwide embrace of the horsemanship culture he created. Born November 24, 1940, Beth-Halachmy grew up in a small town south of Tel Aviv, Israel, and dreamed of becoming a cowboy.
“The only thing we knew about cowboys was from movies—John Wayne, Glenn Ford and all those guys we saw on the screen,” says Beth-Halachmy. “I wanted to be like them. We didn’t know there were people in Montana and Wyoming freezing outside watching their cattle. I looked at the cowboy as freedom, doing the things you wanted to do.”
And so he has.