Just an aside to jsgodess,
I love that tune and used to hear it in Germany all the time as a youth, but by Bert Kaempfert!
(Sorry, but I can’t find a YouTube for ya;))
Thanks for that sweet memory and sorry for the hijack, but I’m a musician and I love music!
Q
:eek:
Dude, that’s IT!
And, wow, there is some other instrumentation of that tune after all. I must have heard it on too many relatively low-fidelity settings (e.g. crappy car speakers, grocery store sound systems, etc.). Maybe it’s the turntable in the youtube vid, but that version seems to be a touch fast. Definitely the song, though.
Thanks, everyone, for offering up suggestions.
(does “The Horse” not evoke “Las Vegas high-rollers” for anyone else? I thought that would be the most helpful part of the description)
No, it’s eternally a marching band song for me. 
Yeah, it’s possible you’ve actually heard nearly all-horn marching band arrangements. It doesn’t quite feel smooth enough to be Rat Pack for me, though it has a certain vibrancy that fits for those cities. And it hit #2 in 1968, smack at the right time.
Looking at it now, I think the ESPN Baseball theme tipped me off. There’s a very slight similarity in the melody (at least the first few notes).
I was kind of hoping it would’ve been “Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White”. Great song.
Ok you found it. I was about to suggest Gonna Fly Now, the theme from Rocky. But The Horse it is.
It’s popular, or used to be, with HS Marching Bands.
That’s more funky than jazz.
And I’ve never heard it before.
So glad you located the one you were after. I was familiar with the tune before but had no idea of its name.
Now that you found yours, let me share the one I associate with the remake of Ocean’s Eleven: Rodney Yates – which has none of the features you mentioned in the OP.
Just curious if any of the ones that got submitted are “new favorites” of yours now. 
Definitely funky, I think of it as very “70’s sounding” although it seems to be from 1968.
Apparently it was an alternate instrumental version of a song called “Love is Alright” but the instrumental was the hit.
Seemingly every pep band plays some version of this song, so if you watch high school or college sports you will hear it.
Many of them were old favorites. Elmer Bernstein’s many movie themes, though … I knew a few of his tunes but never knew the composer. Was glad to dig around through that “stack”.
…
While we’re here: exactly what kind of horn is playing the main, repeating horn riff in “The Horse”? If that’s a trumpet, it sounds world’s different than, say, Alpert’s or Mangione’s signature sounds.
I’m 90% sure the horn sound is either a trumpet or cornet, and I have never been able to distinguish them by hearing them. Not a fluegelhorn, they’re mellower. Not a trombone. Not a sax.
That implies it’s Rocco Bene on trumpet.
Since bordelond’s OP issue has been resolved, I’m wondering if we need a separate thread to deal with a side issue, or whether we could continue here.
The side issue (maybe there are others) would be how many other composers (like Bernstein, Schifrin, Mancini) or bands/orchestras from that same general period (60’s-70’s) have instrumental singles that went high on the charts.
Disregarding the specifics that bordelond itemized, what other “big hits” of an instrumental variety do you remember from back then?
Dipping back into the 50’s for tunes I would have offered here, I’d list:
– Lisbon Antigua
– Poor People of Paris
– Quiet Village
– Holiday for Strings
– Serenata
– Belle of the Ball
… just for starters.
OMG! I have been looking for this song for YEARS!!! My high school band used to play this at every game and I wanted to know what it was. Always loved it.
To me this song says PEP RALLY!
Thanks for the bottom of my heart. I can finally rest.
Already answered. That link goes to The Top 40 Instrumentals, 1955 - 1979.
Thanks for the repeat. That is one fine list.
I’m very happy the answer was found. This is one of those songs that are super familiar to me but never in a million years could I have come up with either the song title or the artist.
Nice, nice tone, then.
Haven’t listened to “TSOP” in ages. Off to youtube.
And because even I was confused until rereading the notes there, that’s just the highest forty instrumentals of the period. For all the “Top 40” instrumentals (instrumentals that were ranked 40 or higher), see this list of all Top 40 songs by year.
A few things I noted from that list:
Instrumentals often charted in the same year as vocal versions. “Cherry Red & Apple Blossom White” is one example, and in this case I’d bet hardly anyone knows the hit vocal version.
Instrumentals fell off the map in pop music by the end of the 70s. By the 1990s,it was less than one per year, and that was mostly Kenny G.
Herb Alpert had an awful lot of hits, and remarkable staying power, considering that his comeback in the 70s-80s was more than just one hit.