Hoof Beats with Pat Murphy
Young Love
Cindy McClellan is a dazzling blonde with a
glowing tan and an air of having found her right place in the world. She is
dedicated to helping young people find lasting friendships with horses. So each
weekday, one can find Cindy at Seven Oaks Ranch on Roblar, helping kids groom
their horses, saddle up and learn to ride. Things are well organized here, with
safety and clean-up rules posted on the barn wall, near the cross ties. One of
them proclaims: “All food supplements must be kept in plastic containers with
secure lids. Let the mice and squirrels fend for themselves”
The riding class circles the ring at
a walk, then at a signal, little heels press the sides of the horses and they
break into a trot. Little bodies respond by posting nicely, as they have been
taught. Some of the kids are really small, the youngest is six-years-old. And when they are mounted on a big one
thousand pound horse they look like mice on an elephant. But these horses have
been carefully hand-picked by Cindy and, somehow, as you observe these horses
at work, a gentle, even loving demeanor emanates from them. They have kind,
luminous eyes and careful movements (even when they are cantering) that show
you they’re aware of their precious cargos.
“The kids love the horses and the horses
love them,” says Cindy. “They’re happy horses. They’re not overworked, they are
groomed once or twice a day, they’re fed well and they get petted a lot.
They’re good at taking care of little kids.
“When someone brings me a horse to
evaluate for use as a school horse, I can almost tell within five minutes what
they are really like. Do they tie well and stand quietly? Do they willingly
bridle up and will they neck rein? I evaluate their gaits and take them out on
the trail to see how they react to distractions. I like older horses too.”
Cindy has a long history with horses. “My
sister, Vicki, and I were horse crazy kids,” she tells me. “At seven and eight
years of age we hung out at Cece Thorsen’s nearby training stable in Santa
Barbara and soaked up all the knowledge and experience with horses that came
our way. I can certainly say that it kept us busy and out of trouble as
teenagers, the horses were our best friends.”
The noted trainers Doug Ingersoll and Tim
Whitney were also mentors and hired the girls to exercise horses and help with
clients. They ended up taking
lessons from and/ or working with almost every trainer in the Valley, in order
to gain as much experience as possible. Skip Shalhoob taught them how to drive
trucks and trailers and buy and sell horses When Cindy was nineteen, the two
sisters went out on their own and opened a stable called Present Ranch for
boarding and training.
After marrying and moving to the Valley,
Cindy got into western riding and giving lessons. How busy is she? There are
the riding lessons every weekday and then on weekends there is junior rodeo
with her daughter or with her high school rodeo students. Now after thirteen
years, there are sixty students in the Little Big Riding School. Cindy hires three assistants to help
with the riding groups also. If there seems to be plethora of girls taking
riding lessons, it may be because the boys gravitate to Rodeo Camp. At six and
seven, boys are fascinated with not only learning to ride, but being able to
swing a rope, goat tying, and other Jr. Rodeo riding skills.
Other big attractions are the horse day
camps. There are spring and winter camps, and the summer camps take place in
July. There are twenty kids in
each of the five camps, between the ages of six to fifteen and they are kept
busy with all kinds of unique and imaginative activities. For instance, small groups of students
will be assigned a horse and they must compete in a horse decorating contest.
Yes, really! They must fully decorate a live horse. Every camp has a theme that
is carried out with the decorations. In the past, horses have emerged as
walking pizzas, Italian dinner tables, Christmas presents or rodeo clowns. A
beach theme has inspired beach umbrellas planted atop an equine back and
painted ocean waves breaking over the horse’s flanks!
Then there are the trail rides where the
kids sleep over night on a ranch belonging to Harlan Burchardi. They can enjoy
sitting around the campfire in the evening, singing and telling stories. Just
to make sure that the kids never forget the happy times they have with their
horses at the Little Big Riding School, they take home photos framed in a
horseshoe. Chances are these become treasured possessions for many years to
come.
“Are there challenges in working so hard
with young children?” I ask.
“Well, luckily I’m naturally very patient, “Cindy says in her gentle
voice. “ I go over things until I’m sure they understand. Sometimes, I show
them by putting my hands over their little hands on the reins and show them
that way. Sometimes they are afraid because they have fallen off a horse when
they were riding before they came to me. I want them to be able to trust me and
my carefully chosen horses and we have drills to improve balance because that
is usually the reason that one might fall. But if that ever happens, my horses
just stop and wait for them to get back on. So I slow the kids down and build
their confidence.
“It’s interesting to see how a child’s
confidence and self-esteem grows as their riding skills grow. So I give plenty
of praise and affection. We talk easily together and sometimes they tell me
things that they don’t even tell their parents. I had one little girl come to
me and say how much she wished her father would come and watch her ride
sometime. I said, ‘Have you ever
asked him to come?’ and she said ‘No, because he’s always so busy, he even works
when we are eating dinner. He’s just always on the phone.’
“I urged her to tell him how she felt and
about two weeks later here he comes! A beaming father stood by the arena,
watching his daughter proudly ride her horse.”