He left high school after his freshman year to gallop racehorses, then worked as an exercise boy for a wealthy grocer, James Butler, who showed hunters and jumpers.
In 1927, Craven began his association with the National Horse Show, the United States' showcase equestrian competition.
Always a meticulous dresser with never a button wrong, Honey recalled, "I think he picked me because I already had classy riding clothes."
As assistant ringmaster, wearing top hat, gloves, red jacket and white jodhpurs, he sounded the coaching horn to summon the horses and the riders.
Each year Craven shoehorned upward of 300 horses into the fifth-floor walk-up that served as the stabling area at the Garden, an after-dark maneuver that often took place while a New York Rangers hockey game was being played below.
It also meant dozens of temporary stalls in horse vans on the streets of the garment district and headaches for Craven.
It was an annual tradition for newspapers to carry a photo of dump trucks unloading tons of loam and binder's clay onto the concrete floor of the Garden - the same dirt that was rented and returned each November for more than 40 years.
Craven was known as one who wouldn't permit any second-rate behavior, but whose primary concern was always the welfare of the horse and rider.
Sportswriter Red Smith recounted the tale Honey told of the Sunday when a Monsignor Melton, midway through a sermon, recognized two horse show stewards in the congregation.
"The Monsignor was familiar with the hand signals stewards use to advise the judge that a horse has made a half-fault at this fence or one fault at that one.
During jumping and hunting events, Craven sounded a wail on the foxhunt horn to give a horse the gate (disqualification).
Before and during his horse-show jobs, he worked in Boston, Massachusetts for the London Harness Shop, selling saddles to Gen. George S. Patton and playing coachman for the Vanderbilts and other society families.
Craven was depicted in ringmaster regalia on the cover of New Yorker in 1956 and in 1958 was a guest challenger on the TV panel show "To Tell the Truth."
USA Equestrian, the sport's national governing body, gave him its lifetime achievement award.