Further proof that the Times' best reporters cover sports

Gosh, what a cute little article.

After blowing into town yesterday on a one-eyed painted pony, a lanky Texan named Howard Wooldridge looked a bit beleaguered.

He had just arrived in Manhattan from the West Coast, but not on the red-eye, having left Los Angeles on March 4 on horseback and riding some 3,300 miles to New York. He rode, he said, about 25 miles a day, six days a week.

Mr. Wooldridge and Misty, his 11-year-old pony, took the Broadway Bridge from the Bronx and rode down the West Side on Broadway.

He wore dirty jeans, three neckerchiefs and a dusty Stetson. His arms were sunburned and his face weather-beaten.

His bedroll was tied behind his saddle, and a bag of carrots stuck out of a saddlebag. He held Misty's reins in his chamois herder's gloves. He ambled down the sidewalk nodding to passers-by and using greetings like "Howdy" and "Mornin'."

Mr. Woolridge, 54, a former police officer in Michigan and seasoned horseman, made the trip to gain publicity for his campaign to legalize drugs, the same reason he and Misty rode from Georgia to Oregon in 2003. As mothers pushing strollers came up to pet Misty, Mr. Wooldridge handed out cards with the name of a group he helped found, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

I understand the urge to give the story a nice, homey angle to it. But, excuse me New York "all the news fit to print" Times, doesn't this warrant more than just a description of the pony (and at what age do ponies stop being ponies)? The drug war is a serious subject, and this guy is putting himself on the line to publicize its wrong headedness.

I mean...

His T-shirt bore this slogan: "Cops Say Legalize Drugs. Ask Me Why."

If the reporter did, we don't read much about it until the the final paragraphs with a throw-away about prisons filled with black and brown people.