Insurance Problems May Corral Park Stable

Shadows of horses stretched long across the corral fences as the sun slipped slowly behind the trees, and those who rode the muddy trails of the Santa Ana River bottom could almost see two words superimposed on the darkening sky.

The End.

Despite 11th-hour attempts to find a required $1-million liability insurance policy, it seemed that owner Ralph Price would be forced to close his popular stables in the city’s scenic River Trails Park.

Price’s insurance expired at midnight, and for weeks he has been unable to find an insurer willing to write a new policy that would give his stables and the City of Norco any more than $500,000 coverage.

Norco requires anyone running equestrian activities on city property to have $1 million in liability coverage, and to name the city as an insured party in the policy, Ray Odell, director of parks and recreation, said.

Throughout the country, liability insurance has become an increasingly expensive commodity to a variety of high-risk businesses, to professionals such as doctors and to governments.

Now it seems that the liability insurance crisis will also get in the way of weekend trailblazers, who no longer will be able to rent horses to slog across the Santa Ana River or explore the bamboo forest that screens out the sights, sounds and tensions of the urban world.

“There’s been a riding stable down there for about 13 or 14 years,” Odell said. “. . . It is an ideal spot.” On weekends, riders often wait in line to rent horses to ride into the 271-acre park, located off Hamner Avenue at the city’s northern boundary.

Price, who has operated the stables for the last two years, was out of town Wednesday and unavailable for comment. Mike Price, the owner’s grandson, was managing the facility Wednesday afternoon. He declined to comment on the stables’ status, saying he was not sure whether the facility would be open for business today.

“He (Price) is still pursuing his insurance,” Odell said, “but I won’t know until after (Wednesday) night” if the stables can find the required insurance and continue operating. The city leases the park space to Price for $600 a month.

Odell said that even if the stables, with its herd of about 40 horses, does close, the park will remain open, adding: “People in the community that own horses (can still) go down there and ride.”

Norco prides itself on having a horse trail beside every street, and roughly twice as many equine residents as humans, but the liability insurance crisis has corralled other equestrian activities in the city as well.

“We’ve experienced that problem with equestrian groups that use Ingalls Park,” the city’s equestrian center, Odell said. “We’ve had to cancel a couple of horse shows already,” because the groups running them could not get the necessary insurance.