Riding duo love parade

MAPLETON — Seventy-four-year-old Jim Ashman may need a milk crate and a leg up to mount his lanky Arabian horse Wednesday, but that won't stop him from prancing the horse down University Avenue in the America's Freedom Festival Grande Parade in Provo.

Ashman and longtime friend Tom James, 77, have been riding side-by-side along the parade route for almost as long as the parade's been around. It's been 39 years since Ashman took his first parade ride and 45 years for James.

"It's become a tradition," said Ashman, who practices dentistry in Mapleton. "A lot of my patients ask me, 'Are you going to be in the parade? Are you going to wave at me?'"

The two call themselves the "silver saddles," and they ride on saddles encrusted with pure engraved silver.

James, the first of the pair to get into the parade business, made his first run in Levi's and a hand-me-down saddle. But, he said, the parade obsession didn't start until he bought his first silver saddle.

Now James reckons he can't stop riding in the parade as long as he has it. When he gave Ashman one a few years later, he doomed his friend to the same fate.

"They're probably going to have to put a safety belt on the saddle to tie me in one of these days," James said, "but I'll still ride."

The saddles, which brand new cost upward of $175,000, are pretty much the only things besides the riders that have stayed consistent over the years. Each rider has cycled through several horses, and sometimes the two are joined by friends or family.

James and Ashman have been a lot of things over the years — knights in armor, Arabians, cowboys, Indians, Mexicans with sombreros. This year, though, the two plan to keep it simple in black hats, white shirts and bolo ties, Ashman said.

"It's too hot for tuxedos," he said.

Ashman started polishing his saddle Saturday to get it prepped and gleaming for the big day, a task he expected will take him at least 10 hours. It takes a lot of work to get the horses and saddles in parade condition, he said.

Both men awoke early one recent morning to get the horses cleaned and dolled up.

James compared his horse, a regal Pinto he calls Ugly, to a beauty queen. Ashman compares his pre-parade routine with his horse, Braveheart, to a "session at the make-up counter."