TRIPS: HORSEBACK RIDING : A Stable Job : Owners of a Newbury Park equestrian ranch use it to steer youngsters away from delinquency.

Children, even little children, are welcome at the Two Winds Ranch in Newbury Park, the only spot left in Ventura County where you can still rent a horse by the hour and ride mountain trails offering spectacular views.

The ranch at 4801 W. Potrero Road is at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains and riders have access to the state-owned parkland, as well as the 1,400 acres on which the ranch sits.

For $12 an hour ($7 for half an hour) riders, led by a guide, can ride a crisscross of trails over the mountains, on a clear day catching a glimpse of the ocean. Lessons are offered at 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Long-time horse veterans Bess Chaney and Alvin (Bully) Caddin own the riding operation. They lease the land, which has been on the verge of development for many years.

The ranch was crawling with youngsters on a recent Saturday. That’s just fine with Chaney and Caddin, who see the horse environment as a way to steer youngsters away from delinquency.

Chaney teaches most of the children to ride. Then she offers them something else--a unique apprenticeship of sorts. If they are responsible, they become part of the ground crew on the weekends. They clean up after the animals. They learn how to put the bridles on the horses and lead them out front for riders to mount. Those who stick with it become trail guides, earning $5 for each excursion.

“They can’t stay here if they get bad grades,” said Chaney, 44, who has been riding horses since she was two years old.

As she talked, two girls, no more than 10 years old, shoveled manure into a wheelbarrow in front of the little ramshackle building that serves as the office for horse rentals. Half a dozen dogs lounged about.

Chaney has 30 horses available for rent, and during the school year she’s visited by various youth groups--even preschool age children whom she leads around on a pony.

They make riding easy at the Two Winds Ranch. Riders climb a three-step platform for easy mounting. Chaney says the horses are extremely gentle and calm.

“You have to almost jump off to fall off one of them,” she said.

High insurance rates have forced other stables in the county to eliminate horse rental by the hour, she said. The rates are too high for her as well, so she simply doesn’t have any. A sign informs riders of this.

She isn’t worried about a costly lawsuit. “I’m barely making it--I don’t have anything.”

Her partner, Caddin, boards more than 100 horses at the ranch, and on Saturdays he runs a competitive event called team penning. As the clock ticks, teams of three riders attempt to separate two cows out of a cluster of 20 and herd them down the arena and into a pen.

Some 35 riders, mostly children, paid their $10 to compete on a recent Saturday. Caddin announced the riders, their times and offered a good-natured commentary on their performance.

“He was out of his saddle so high, birds built a nest on his seat,” Caddin roared at some hapless rider.

“Now holler at him, holler at him,” he bellowed at a wisp of a girl as she maneuvered a cow toward the pen.

Caddin, who has been around horses all his life, holds a tight rein on the boys and girls at the Two Winds Ranch. He doesn’t allow smoking, alcohol, drugs or cussing.

“It’s a pretty good environment for kids,” he said. “In 17 years not one has been in jail or any kind of trouble. I take pride in that.”

* WHERE AND WHEN: Two Winds Ranch is at 4801 W. Potrero Road in Newbury Park. Take Wendy Drive south off the Ventura Freeway. The ranch is open Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For information call 498-9222.