Pet Issue Is Back in the Saddle : Thousand Oaks: In a replay of the familiar Ragtime tune, city asks a resident to get rid of two miniature horses.

Thousand Oaks, which lost one legal tiff over a miniature horse named Ragtime, has decided to wage another legal battle--this time with a man who keeps two of the small horses in his back yard at a housing tract.

City officials are asking Greg Bowlay to remove the miniature horses from his house on Calle Castano because they say his 13,000-square-foot lot is too small.

Deputy City Atty. Nancy Kierstyn Schreiner said the city wants to send a message to the community that miniature horses are unwelcome in densely populated residential areas, despite a judge’s decision allowing Patty and Richard Fairchild to keep their miniature horse, Ragtime, at their home on Shady Brook Drive.

Bowlay, who has been issued two municipal citations for having the horses, said he plans to battle the city in court. He has pleaded not guilty, and the case is scheduled to be heard by a Ventura County municipal judge on April 10. The maximum penalty for each citation is $1,000.

Schreiner said she is confident that Thousand Oaks can win the fight against Bowlay because it has eliminated loopholes in its ordinance regulating miniature horses that resulted in a three-year losing struggle in the Ragtime case.

In September, 1987, a Ventura municipal judge dismissed the city’s case against the Fairchilds because, he said, the part of the Thousand Oaks zoning code dealing with horses was poorly worded.

As a result, the city adopted a new ordinance prohibiting a single horse of any size on a lot smaller than 20,000 square feet. That stipulation was missing from the previous ordinance, Schreiner said.

Thousand Oaks then cited the Fairchilds under the revised ordinance. But a municipal judge ruled that, because of Ragtime’s size, the miniature horse was considered a domestic pet under city regulations and could remain at the Shady Brook Drive home.

Since then, the city, which received worldwide attention in the Ragtime case, again changed its ordinance. The definition of a domestic pet was altered to include dogs, cats, tropical fish, small rodents and small reptiles. It defined miniature horses, as well as pot-bellied pigs and other small animals, as livestock and prohibited them in densely populated areas.

Bowlay said the city is trying to “save face” after losing the Ragtime battle by unfairly targeting him.

“They took that loss very personally,” Bowlay said. “Now they’re coming after me.”

Schreiner said the case has nothing to do with the city’s pride. She said her office has received several complaints from neighbors who say Bowlay’s horses stink. Moreover, the city is enforcing its ordinance, which was adopted to protect the community, she said.

“People have to consider their neighbors,” Schreiner said. “You don’t bring pigs, horses and goats into a housing tract . . . where people are living close together.”

Bowlay, a former state Department of Corrections officer who has been out of work because of a medical disability, said two miniature horses, named Apache and Chips, have been kept in a large pen in his back yard since July.

He said he bought Chips for his daughter, Rachelle, 6, and liked him so much that he bought Apache for himself.

“I consider them pets,” Bowlay said. “They’re part of my family.”

Philip R. Dunn, Bowlay’s attorney, said he has a good case against the city. But he conceded that it will be more difficult to beat City Hall this time around.

“They have learned from their mistakes,” Dunn said. “You get caught with your pants down the first time; the second time, you know what you’ve done wrong.”