Pony Express Kiddie Ride

The Pony Express, also known as Cavallo Pony in some international markets, is a horse ride manufactured by Italian kiddie ride company Cogan. It was first launched in 1994 as part of a range of Wild West themed rides produced by Cogan that also included the *Ranch Cogan* wagon ride and later additions, the *Western Shot* and *Grand Canyon*, both of which are horse rides interspersed with a target shooting game.

Whilst the Pony Express is largely marketed at young children, its large size makes it both attractive and suitable for teenagers and adults alike. It is one of very few kiddie rides that is actually capable of carrying a full size adult.

## Appearance

The Pony Express consists of a large horse sat on a hydraulic arm which operates inside its base. The ride is decorated with a multi-coloured vulture sitting atop a tree trunk with a signpost marked 'WEST' on its side. The coin slot is located on the back of the trunk and the ride includes a small set of steps that allow for easy mounting and disembarking from the horse. The floor of the ride consists of a grass verge complete with flowers and horse hoof prints.

The horse is coloured black with a white stripe on its face, white markings on its legs, a bright pink nose and a gold mane and tail. It is adorned with a western themed saddle cloth seat, a pouch with the word 'U.S.' on its right hand side, and a mailbag on the rear that reads 'Pony Express'.

The ride features both a safety bar and a set of reins, the rider can choose which to hold onto when the ride is in motion.

Whilst black is the most common colour of horse for this ride, some Pony Express rides with either a white or skewbald coloured horse are also said to exist, though these are extremely rare.

In the versions of the ride distributed by SB Machines for the UK and Ireland, the ride comes equipped with a green 'Press To Start' button which flashes once the correct money has been inserted. Originally this button was circular but later changed a rectangle shape. International versions do not have this button featured, and the ride begins immediately when the correct amount of money is inserted.

## Versions

The Version 1 of the Pony Express ride features the pouch coloured lime green and a red and yellow coloured mailbag. Its original soundtrack was a generic Western style theme music.

Version 2 of the Pony Express ride, which began to be manufactured in 2000 features changes to the colour scheme. The pouch is now coloured blue whilst the mailbag colours are changed to green and blue. Later models also added a rear metal safety restraint for unknown reasons. Most of the Version 2 editions retained the original Version 1 soundtrack but some editions also used a different soundtrack such as the opening theme to the film *The Magnificent Seven*.

The ride's attract mode featured a short piece of generic Western music (slightly different to the tune used in the actual ride) and sounds of both a horse whinnying and galloping.

## Ride Experience

The Pony Express ride usually runs for 1 minute and 30 seconds on a single ride, though some can run as short as 50 seconds and as long as 1 minute and 50 seconds.

Unlike other horse rides at the time, which usually consisted of just a galloping horse, the Pony Express used an innovative mechanism to provide a more realistic-like horse ride. This allowed the horse to travel at various speeds during the ride time:

* Trotting: The horse moves back and forth at a steady speed
* Faster Transition: The horse begins to move faster and adds a 'duck and buck' element
* Galloping: The horse runs at its highest speed and constantly ducks and bucks for a realistic galloping flow.
* Slowing Transition: The horse slows down and ducks and bucks at a smaller rate
* Trotting: The horse returns to its steady back and forth movement

This process repeats itself throughout the duration of the ride.

Another unique element is that the horse has the ability of coming to a standstill at the end of the ride in a different position:

* Level position: The horse stops firmly on the middle of the base. This is usually the most common end position.
* Bucking position: The horse stops with its head positioned to the ground.
* Ducking position: The horse stops with its front raised as it was rearing.

This ensures that every ride begins differently. The level position means the ride can start at any pace whilst if the horse is in the bucking or ducking position, the ride will start at either a galloping pace or in one of its transition paces.

## Sightings

When first manufactured in 1994, along with the Ranch Cogan, the Pony Express was an immediate hit and became one of the most widely popular sighted rides during the rest of the 1990's and into the early 2000's.

With the advent of more modern kiddie rides, the Pony Express has been largely phased out internationally, though as of 2018, some still do remain in the UK. They can mostly be found in seaside locations such as Blackpool and Weston-super-Mare.

## Inspiration

The success of the Pony Express has led to other rival ride manufacturers to follow Cogan's model for other horse themed rides. Spanish company Falgas released their own version of the Pony Express in the late 1990's and Memo Park, another ride manufacturer based in Italy, made a range of western-themed horse rides in the late 1990's and early 2000's that also used the Cogan mechanism.

More recently, in 2014, another Italian based company Ital-Resina, began marketing the Double Pony ride, which features two horses positioned on the same ride base, allowing two people to ride at the same time (though each horse has a separate coin box). The Double Pony again also uses the trotting/galloping motion of the original Pony Express ride.