After nearly 100 years in business, this is the final event for Bingo’s D&S Saddle Shop in Colorado Springs.
The store at 422 S. 8th St. will close its doors permanently on August 27th.
Bingo’s has survived several moves and changes of ownership over the decades, but the challenges it faces now are just too great, says Diane Hanchey, who owns the business with her sister, Kim Parker.
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Bingo’s, which sells tack, saddles, riding apparel and grooming products, started as a small downtown harness shop. Its roots go back to at least 1929, although Hanchey believes the business is even older. It was called D&S before Dominic “Bingo” Sentena took over the business in the early 1940s and added Bingo’s to the name. Sentena owned it for more than 40 years.
Hanchey and Parker, both horseback riders, were customers before joining the business in 2011 with Jeannine Vanderhoff, who had been manager under another longtime owner, Phil Guy, and took over the shop when he retired. The sisters became sole owners when Vanderhoff left a few years later to become a nurse. They moved the stop to its current location — just two doors down from the previous location — in 2016 and commissioned muralist Douglas Rouse to paint a striking mural on the south wall depicting two horseback riders, one in an English saddle and the other in western riding.
Bingo’s D & S Saddle Shop was originally located in downtown Colorado Springs. This photo of the store front was taken around 1930.
The world of horses and trade has changed considerably over the store’s long history.
“Internet sales have definitely hurt us,” Hanchey said. Potential customers come in, find what they want and then scour the Internet to find it cheaper, she said. At the same time, competition from brick-and-mortar retailers like Big R has also increased.
Meanwhile, the shrinking horse community has largely been pushed to the outskirts of town or beyond, she said. When the Norris Penrose Event Center, just minutes from Bingo’s, stopped long-term horse boarding at the end of 2022, it hurt business, Hanchey said. (Norris Penrose still has spots for short-term boarding of visiting horses.) That the Fort Carson Mounted Color Guard closed earlier this year after nearly 60 years was another blow, Hanchey said.
In addition, her rent has increased significantly, she said.
Running the business is a labor of love, she said, and she, her sister and branch manager Sherri Georges are keen to keep it going. But ultimately, “if you can’t pay the rent, you have to close.”
After nearly 100 years in business, Bingo’s D & S Saddle Shop in Colorado Springs is closing. Sisters and co-owners Diane Hanchey (left) and Kim Parker stand among some saddles that were for sale in the shop Tuesday. Bingo’s is the last saddle shop in Colorado Springs.
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Bingo’s closure is a reflection of changing times, says long-time customer Wendy Wilkinson.
“I think the whole horse world is getting smaller,” says Wilkinson, who got her first horse at age 10 and writes for western magazines such as Cowboys & Indians. She has been a customer at Bingo’s for about 25 years, she says, and stops by every few months to buy fly spray, shampoo, blankets or other items. On this day, she was looking for gloves for her daughter.
The personal touch, she said, is one reason she keeps coming back to Bingo’s.
“Diane comes and asks, ‘What are you looking for, what type of gloves are you looking for, are they winter or summer gloves?’ I like that personal relationship.”
“It’s just sad to see them go,” said another customer, Emily Knight. For her, Bingo’s was a reliable place to get last-minute things for her horses: “Oh, I need fly spray or a hoof pick or something. It was always here.”
The mural on the south side of Bingo’s D & S Saddle Shop. (Parker Seibold/The Gazette)
And if you want to buy something for your horses, Bingo’s offers something the Internet doesn’t.
“I want to touch it, I want to look at it and I want to make sure it is a quality item.”
Hanchey isn’t sure what she’ll do next. Whatever goods are left over after the store closes, she’ll move them to her barn and, ironically, maybe try to sell them online.
Losing the store, especially so close to its 100-year mark, hurts deeply, she says. When she and her sister took over Bingo’s, “our primary goal wasn’t to make a lot of money. We just wanted to keep it open.”
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