After nearly 100 years in business, it’s the last roundup for Bingo’s D&S Saddle Shop in Colorado Springs.

The store at 422 S. 8th St. is closing its doors for good on Aug. 27.

Bingo’s has survived several moves and ownership changes over the many decades, but the challenges facing it now are just too much to overcome, says Diane Hanchey, who owns the business with her sister, Kim Parker.

Bingo’s, which sells tack, saddles, riding apparel and grooming supplies, began as a small harness shop downtown. Those roots reach back to at least 1929, though 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 was owner for more than 40 years.

Hanchey and Parker, both horsewomen, 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 to become a nurse a few years later. They moved the stop to its current location — just two doors down from its previous spot — in 2016 and commissioned muralist Douglas Rouse to paint an eye-catching mural on the south wall showing two riders, one in an English saddle and the other riding Western.

The worlds of horses and commerce have changed significantly over the shop’s long history.

“Internet sales definitely have hurt us,” Hanchey said. Would-be customers come in, find what they’re looking for, 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, a shrinking horse community has largely been pushed to the outskirts of the city or beyond, she said. When Norris Penrose Event Center, just minutes away from Bingo’s, ended long-term horse boarding around the end of 2022, that hurt business, Hanchey said. (Norris Penrose still has spaces for short-term boarding for visiting horses.) The Fort Carson Mounted Color Guard coming to an end early this year after nearly 60 years was another blow, Hanchey said.

On top of all that, their rent has climbed significantly, she said.

Operating the business is a labor of love, she said, and she, her sister and store manager Sherri Georges desperately wanted to keep it going. But, ultimately, “If you can’t make the rent, you have to shut it down.”

Bingo’s closing is a reflection of the changing times, says longtime customer Wendy Wilkinson.

“I think the whole world of horses is shrinking,” said Wilkinson, who got her first horse when she was just 10 and writes for Western-themed publications such as Cowboys & Indians. She has been a customer at Bingo’s for 25 years or so, she said, dropping in every couple of months for fly spray, shampoo, blankets or other items; on this day, she was looking for gloves for her daughter.

The personal touch, she said, was one reason she kept coming back to Bingo’s.

“Diane will come and say, ‘What are you looking for, what types of gloves are you looking for, is it winter, summer?’ I like that personal relationship.”

“It’s just sad to see them go,” said another customer, Emily Knight. For her, Bingo’s has been a reliable spot to grab last-minute things for her horses: “Oh, I need fly spray, or a hoof pick or something. It was always here.”

And Bingo’s offers something the internet doesn’t when buying something for her horses.

“I want to feel it, I want to look at it, I want to make sure it is a quality item.”

Hanchey isn’t sure what she’ll do next. She’ll take any merchandise that remains after closing the shop to her barn and, ironically, will perhaps try to sell it online.

The loss of the store, particularly so close to the century mark, hurts deeply, she says. When she and her sister took over Bingo’s, “Our No. 1 goal wasn’t to make a bunch of money. We just wanted to keep it open.”