Horse Illustrated Magazine

Editor’s Note: You may have heard that there were some interesting horse scenes in this week’s episode of ABC’s The Bachelorette. We turned to Horse Illustrated Reality TV Correspondent Holly Caccamise for a play-by-play of what happened.

It’s time for another inexplicable “horse date” on The Bachelorette! (Tap here to read about the last one and here to read about the time a Mini Horse appeared with a contestant on The Bachelor.)

I don’t get it. I don’t get why combining non-horse people with horses is supposed to be such compelling television. Are horses kitschy? Nostalgic? Fluffy and cute yet also dangerous? I just can’t see this through the eyes of a “normal” person.

ANYWAY.

Anthony, a 26-year-old Education Software Manager, tells us his date card said he’d be going to the rodeo, so he thought he was going to have to rope a cow or something. “I’m up for anything!” Good attitude.

Turns out the date is shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills … on horseback. “I’ve never been on a horse before!” he says. However, he was much more graceful at mounting than that disaster we saw from JoJo last season.

So, off they go. Literally just riding down the street. People everywhere are gawking and taking pictures and screaming at the bachelorette—”We love you Rachel!” It IS nice to finally see some diversity on this show.

First stop, boot store. Because of course. Anthony wears a size “13 or 14” (!!). He gets some pretty red boots—I am pained to think what those cost on Rodeo Drive. Rachel gets some matchy red flower boots, they both put on a hat, and they’re ready to be fake cowboys for a day! (At least she’s from Texas, so we’ll give her a pass.)

Then they go to a “cupcake ATM” (apparently this is a real thing), and discover one of them is called a Horse Cupcake. Anthony gets one and feeds it to the horse. Um … hmm.

At the next store, also very inexplicably, they both get coats similar to high school letterman jackets. It’s probably 80 degrees as they film this.

Finally, the inevitable happens. One of the horses makes a poopie in the store. They pixelate it out because … ??? I see so much of that every day I really don’t think of it as anything but mildly processed hay. At least it didn’t happen in the boot store; they had a white carpet!

They ride off once again and that’s it. Very strange. Not really sure what bonding was supposed to occur when two non-horse people are trying to concentrate on riding and shopping and smiling for the screaming fans.

Until next time!

Holly Caccamise is Managing Editor of Horse Illustrated. She watches reality television so you don’t have to.