Baguio’s ‘Pony Boys’ finally recovering from pandemic

MANE ATTRACTION This horse’s mane has been dyed pink by its owner to better attract people at Baguio City’s Wright Park, where the summer capital’s Pony Boys earn a living by offering horseback riding to tourists. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY—When tourists were barred from traveling after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, Baguio’s “Pony Boys” found themselves struggling for two years to feed the horses that help put food on their tables.

Over 200 Pony Boys earn a living by renting out their horses to residents or tourists who pay up to P600 for an hour’s ride through parks and forests surrounding the presidential Mansion. Sixty more Pony Boys do business at the Camp John Hay reservation.

But when Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma visited them at Baguio’s Wright Park on Tuesday, the Pony Boys were busy serving families who were eager for horseback rides.

‘Suki’

From literally zero clients in 2020, the Pony Boys have been serving an average of 1,200 riders each day, moving closer to their 1,800 daily clients before COVID-19 disrupted the city’s economy, said Adonis Tinangpan, president of Kabalyero Guardians Inc.

MANE ATTRACTION This horse’s mane has been dyed pink by its owner to better attract people at Baguio City’s Wright Park, where the summer capital’s Pony Boys earn a living by offering horseback riding to tourists. —EV ESPIRITU

Kabalyero members own 60 of the 200 horses at Wright Park. Out in Camp John Hay, 60 more horses are rented out by Pony Boys.

In a previous interview, Pony Boy Simber Serong said the sector relied on “suki” (frequent clients), particularly members of rich Baguio families, who shared food and cash to tide them over. Food and cash aid were also provided by the Baguio government and the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole).

But since August last year, more horses have been rented out after travel restrictions were finally lifted, Tinangpan said on Tuesday.

Each Pony Boy rents his family horse for P300 to children who ride around a track at Wright Park for half an hour. Laguesma said the brisk business enjoyed today by the Pony Boys displayed how well Baguio’s economy had improved this year because of “revenge tourism.”

Laguesma drove up to Baguio to sign a memorandum of agreement that would enforce a multiagency “employability improvement” program for the Pony Boys under the “Trabaho, Turismo, Asenso” initiative of Dole and the Department of Tourism.

The program will help scale up the tourism services being offered by the Pony Boys in a city now packed with Christmas holiday visitors. INQ

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