LOS CERRILLOS, N.M. (AP) — Meandering along a dusty trail on the back of a horse, with a vast New Mexico landscape of layered mountains, red rocks and blooming claret cup cactuses spread across the horizon, one can temporarily forget the world is suffering from a pandemic.

Perched on a saddle, moving with a horse's hooves drumming against the cracked desert dirt, "There really is nothing that feels more like freedom," said Harrold Grantham, owner of Broken Saddle Riding Company in Cerrillos. "You forget about everything going on for a while for the time that you're out there."

As the novel cor...