Happy Trails

Like most little girls, I grew up loving horses. I had a collection of plastic Palominos prancing along my windowsill, stick horses propped up against my footboard, and—yes, I even engaged in that popular recess game of galloping around the schoolground, whinnying, and pretending that jump ropes were reins.

The only thing missing from this idyllic play, of course, was the ownership of an actual horse. My parents’ excuse for not getting me one was that we lived in Seattle and that the copious amounts of rain would cause it to shrink.

Happily, my adoration of equines continued throughout adulthood, bringing me opportunities like the one featured in this article: a visit to the Altadena Stables. Situated off a tree-lined lane at the edge of the San Gabriel Valley's Arroyo, it’s a place that dates from 1911, an era which—according to an early brochure—declared that “Correct Riding is one of the most refined accomplishments of the finished Lady or Gentleman.” Students of the day were tutored by Captain George C. Hester, cited in a 1921 newspaper article as saying that several of his patrons had been advised by their physicians to take up riding. “They are finding the prescription most beneficial,” Hester told the press.

It’s impossible, of course, not to feel better in the company of such beautiful animals, especially ones that are as well cared for by current owner Desdy Baggott and trainer Marcy Mclemore. Baggott’s own love affair with horses began as early as mine. “My earliest memory,” she says, “is of my father carrying me across the street to pet a horse on the nose. I was hooked! When I was old enough to talk, the first thing I told him was that I wanted a horse.” Like most parents, he assumed she’d outgrow it. Baggott laughs. “Obviously that didn’t happen, did it?”

Her first horse, Dancing Master, was an American Saddlebred, a breed that she and Mclemore are not only partial to but raise onsite and use for the variety of horseback riding lessons they offer to children and adults. “Hearty, athletic, sweet tempered, brave, reliable”—between the two women, they have no shortage of glowing adjectives to describe a horse that likes to work and isn’t as spooked by distractions as other popular breeds.

Baggott points out that Saddlebreds are featured in most of the Civil War statuary depicting generals on horseback. “Country doctors used them, too,” Mclemore adds, explaining that they were as agreeable to being hitched up to a carriage as they were to having a rider on their backs.

So what exactly is a horse’s day like at Altadena Stables, I inquire.

Mclemore, who has been a professional trainer since 1971 and a fixture at Altadena Stables since 1984, relates that their beginner horses have 30-60 minutes off for each half hour lesson that they work. “Our beginner horses don’t work physically as hard as the intermediates and advanced,” she says. “Mentally, though, they work a lot harder to compensate for the lack of knowledge of rider. For example,” she explains, “if they feel you start to lose your balance or to panic, they‘ll stop so that you don’t fall off.” Lesson horses, who have a specialized expertise of what they can impart to their riders, take approximately a year to train for the beginner programs.

Every once in a while,” Mclemore continues, “we have people who want to donate horses for the lesson programs. The problem, though, is that it’s hard to take a privately owned horse, put them into the lesson program and try to teach them their job. The reason is that, up til now, they’ve been used to just one person and being part of a tight team. Here, they’re going to be experiencing as many as five different riders in one day.”

So which is harder, I ask, to teach a horse how to be ridden or to teach a human how to ride.

The two women laugh simultaneously.

Humans are a lot tougher,” Mclemore replies. “They come with way more baggage!”

Horses, she goes on, are always easier, given their ability to learn by repetition and through consistency. “At the same time,” she says, “anything that they’ve learned on their own they’ll also hold on to longer than anything we try to teach them.”

Their sensitivity to humans, Baggott remarks, is a big part of the equation as well. She points to a rock. “If they sense that the rider is thinking, ‘Oooooh, there’s a scary rock,’ they’re going to pick up on that fear and be afraid of it as well.”

She leans in confidentially and murmurs, “Horses size you up really fast.”

I find myself flashing back on a scene in “True Lies” in which Arnold Schwarzenegger borrows a policeman’s mount to pursue a motorcycle-riding terrorist to the top of the Westin Bonaventure in downtown L.A. Intent on following the terrorist off the roof and into a swimming pool many stories below, “Harry” quickly discovers that his loaner steed doesn’t share the same sense of risk and slams to a comical halt rather than take the perilous leap. At what point, I ask, does the line blur between a horse’s own judgment and its unquestioning trust of the person who’s on his back?

If your horse really trusts you,” McLemore answers, “you can ride it through a keyhole.”

Baggott wholeheartedly concurs. “It takes time to build up that trust, that special bond. When it finally happens, though, it’s like dancing with a good partner. You don’t even have to use the reins. The horse just reads your mind…and vice versa.”

It’s a process, Mclemore illustrates, that takes a year to make the combination click and another two years to feel like a genuine team. “When I start breaking my colts, I set them up to succeed, not to fail. That makes for a good foundation for the future. I try not to put them in a position where they’re going to get scared because anything they learn, that’s going to surface later in life in the same situation. If you use common sense, you can keep a young horse out of trouble and build that relationship to the point that, when you really need them to go through that keyhole, they’re willing to do it. Even if they’re scared, they’ll still trust you to keep them out of harm’s way.”

To build that level of confidence and trust, of course, takes commitment and persistence. “If you want to be good at this,” Baggott advises, “you need to be out here riding 2-3 times a week.”

Altadena Stables currently has 20-30 adults in their lesson programs, and well over twice that number of children. In addition, they offer special programs for kids during the summertime and the Christmas holidays.

Mclemore also takes an active part in helping individuals who decide that they want to purchase a horse and make it a permanent part of their lives. “Some want a horse for exercise,” she says, “while others want to recapture childhood memories of loving these animals or being around them all the time.” She has accompanied prospective buyers as far back as Kentucky and Illinois to assist in finding them the right one to suit their temperament and needs. “It’s not a matter of picking the kind of horse I’d love to have,” she says, “but in picking a horse that the owner wants for a show horse, a trail horse, a horse for their kids. Sometimes it’s love at first sight. Most of the time, though, it takes a little longer.”

Baggott and Mclemore enjoy showing off their horses in statewide and national shows as well. “Del Mar, Monterey, Arizona, Oregon—“ Mclemore starts to count them off. “We always try to pick the places that have the best food,” Baggott interrupts with unabashed candor.

Doing a road trip with equines, of course, is quite a bit different than packing the family dog into a station wagon. Or is it? Mclemore explains that for a trip to Texas, they generally drive straight through. Longer junkets such as Illinois or Kentucky are accomplished with a 6-8 hour rest at the halfway point. Horses, Baggott interjects, generally don’t drink within a 4-6 hour timeframe and are a lot more interested in just having plenty of hay to nosh on and a good ventilation system. It’s also true, both women tell me, that horses can lock their knees and sleep standing up.

If a lot of horses are involved in a trip,” Mclemore says, “there’s a commercial shipper that flies out of Ontario Airport.” A service primarily used for the transport of Thoroughbreds, the planes are equipped with modular stalls. “Upon arrival, their hooves don’t even touch the tarmac. Instead, they are offloaded directly onto a van that will take them to their destination.”

Neither woman, it comes out, is particularly impressed with the writings of Monte Roberts, author of "The Horse Whisperer".

Animals talk to everyone,” Mclemore says. “It’s up to the humans to pay attention and just watch.” Adds Baggott, “Roberts didn’t invent the concept of communicating with horses. The only thing he did different from any of us was to be smart enough to write it down.”

As our morning drew to a close, Baggott fondly shared some anecdotes about one of the stable’s prior owners, a cowboy named Grant Iverson who leased the property from Baggot’s Aunt Elena and taught a number of local kids how to ride and how to handle responsibility. “Oh, and he also trimmed their hair,” she remembers, punctuating it with a laugh. Even today, the stable gets visitors who remember the thrill of first learning to ride under Iverson’s tutelage and to explore the nearby trails of the Arroyo. “It’s something you never get out of your blood,” she says. And as her eyes glisten in remembrance, I know she’s thinking about Dancing Master and the inextricable bond between little girls and horses that never, ever goes away.