HORSE & HOME
AT H O M E WI T H
Melanie Smith Wildwood Farm’s bygone glory can still be felt in Germantown, Tenn. Stor y and Photos By K AT N E T Z L ER
M
elanie Smith Taylor’s earliest memories of Wildwood Farm are steeped in mystique and magnetism. Long before she’d win Olympic
gold or join the Show Jumping Hall of Fame, Taylor was just a naturally gifted, bareback-loving young horsewoman coming of age in the heyday of equestrian sport in western Tennessee. And Wildwood, in what’s now the Memphis suburb of Germantown, was the crown jewel of it all in the 1960s.
Only a handful of horses remain on the farm these days, enjoying their retirement in huge rolling fields. Melanie Smith Taylor keeps an eye on them from her many-windowed home.
56 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
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