Horse in the City: Lessons from the Bill Pickett Riding Academy

Producer: Laska Jimsen

Philadelphia was once a city of horses. The carriage houses and water troughs that blend into the contemporary urban landscape are a palimpsest to our past, through which we can see a city that ran on the strength and toil of horses. While Philadelphia is one of the few cities in the country that continues to permit horses within urban boundaries, the first decade of the 21st century has seen a drastic decrease in their numbers. Named for the famous African-American cowboy and nestled into Fairmount Park, the Bill Pickett Riding Academy’s mission is to “build identity, pride and life skills” in Philadelphia’s youth through horsemanship. Horse in the City underscores how important these animals are in the lives of a few city kids who have the determination and desire to not only understand horses but to make them a significant part of their futures. Each lesson in grooming, feeding, and riding is an opportunity to build self-confidence and responsibility. Through their own commitment to horses, an animal increasingly in danger of disappearing from our city, the adults at the stable lead a path for the next generation.

Laska Jimsen is a Philadelphia-based film and video maker. She works across nonfiction forms from video documentary to artisanal 16mm filmmaking and animation. The 16mm print of her film "Miss Rose Fletcher: A Natural History" has screened at the MadCat, Athens, and Iowa City Experimental film festivals as well as the Moles Not Molars and Emergency reading series in Philadelphia and Structuring Strategies at CalArts. Laska’s credits as Associate Producer and Researcher include programming for the BBC, Channel 4, and PBS, including The American Experience and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Laska teaches film and video production and studies at Temple University and University of the Arts and is a board member of the Termite TV Collective.