The Roslyn School District has received $25,000 in Nassau County funding for the restoration of the “Horse Tamer” statue at Roslyn High School, the district announced Thursday.
The statue stood in front of the school’s main entrance for more than 50 years, but was removed in 2012 for safety reasons.
A local organization of Roslyn alumni, students and staff, called Friends of the Horse Tamer, has raised a little more than $35,000 toward a $100,000 goal for restoration efforts to the statue.
“Many alumni and others in the community are eager to see the Horse Tamer brought back to its former glory, and this support from the county brings us one big step closer to getting the restoration under way, and to bringing the statue back to Roslyn High School,” said Barry Edelson, a Roslyn High School District spokesman.
The statue is one of two horses that was once located on the Mackay Estate at Harbor Hill as a replica of the “Horses Restrained by Grooms,” sculpted by Guillame Coustou and commissioned by King Louis XIV of France in 1649.
Roslyn High School’s statue was removed from the estate in the late 1940s as the property was being developed into the Country Estates neighborhood, while the other remained in the yard of a home until only a few years ago and eventually became the property of the Town of North Hempstead.
North Hempstead’s statue was restored earlier this year and will be placed in Gerry Park. Construction began on the statue’s foundation in late June.
Nassau Executive Edward Mangano worked with Nassau County Legislator Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn) to utilize funds from the Community Revitalization Project to restore the statue, according to a statement issued by Nassau County spokesman Brian Nevin.
Barbara Berke, a member of Roslyn High School’s Class of 1969 and chair of Friends of the Horse Tamer, said the statue has become a “symbol of pride” for Roslyn students and the county funding invigorates the organization to continue its fundraising efforts.
“It really gives us the impetus [to continue raising funds] and validates our efforts that this is real and able to happen, and I hope people who are thinking about donating step up and make a donation,” Berke said. “I feel like the finish line is in reach.”
Berke said the organization’s most popular donation option is for its commemorative brick purchase program, with bricks varying in size, price and engraving options to honor Roslyn families, alums or recent graduates.
Berke said the horse’s likeness even graced the cover of her Roslyn High School yearbook, though Edelson said the horse has not been on the yearbook’s cover “in at least 20 years.”
“As a student, there’s an emotional pull that this horse had standing in the circle in all the years we were students at Roslyn,” Berke said. “It was something we saw every day. I think it was more symbolic as a mascot. Roslyn’s mascot is the bulldog, but if you ask a lot of alums, I think they’d tell you the real mascot is the horse.”
Edelson said after the horse’s removal from the high school, remnants of the statue’s dust was fused into the ink used on the front cover of the Class of 2012’s yearbook.
The statue is currently being housed at North Shore Monuments in Glen Head, which did the restoration for the Town of North Hempstead’s horse statue.
