Equestrian Center Is Preparing to Close Its Corral for Last Time : Thousand Oaks: Stable on Cal Lutheran campus will shut down at the end of the semester. Officials say dwindling interest by students contributed to decision.

A horse named Brandy neighed at one corner of the corral as a tractor that was new in 1958 chugged alongside the fence. Inside the stable, manager Mark Magdaleno spit tobacco juice on the concrete floor and pointed toward the green, molar-shaped hills where the television show “Gunsmoke” was filmed.

The equestrian center, tucked into a far-flung corner of the Cal Lutheran University campus in Thousand Oaks, will close at the end of the semester. College officials said the stable, while upholding a tradition dating back to the school’s inception, no longer matches the institution’s academic mission.

“When this place started, it was really the boonies, and students could bring their horses with them to college,” university spokeswoman Lynda Fulford said. “It’s not really that kind of place anymore.”

She said only one student still keeps a horse at the center, and that the university would rather spend its money improving its academic programs than on a renovation of the equestrian center, which is used mostly by local residents. Fulford estimated it would cost about $1 million to renovate the center, situated across Olsen Road from the main campus.

Owners of the 19 horses at the center were notified in February that the center will close in May. An additional 13 horses are used to give lessons to eight students each semester.

The horses will move to other equestrian facilities nearby. But city officials said the other centers may also be threatened.

“There is no question that development is affecting the existing equestrian centers,” said Mark Towne, the city planner who handles open space issues. He said the city is working to find land to relocate the Academy Equestrian Center and Two Winds Ranch.

Fulford said the university has no plans to sell the stable or the land. The building may be used for storage, she said.

There are no permanent toilets in the center, and wiring hangs exposed from cracked and rusted outlets and fixtures.

Bringing the structures up to code would be prohibitively expensive, Fulford said. “It’s a business decision,” she said.

Chelene Reiley, 24, splits the $600 monthly fees for boarding and upkeep of 10-year-old thoroughbred Velvet with another Cal Lutheran student. “It’s sad to leave such a beautiful place,” she said.

Fulford said dwindling interest by students contributed to the decision.

But Reiley said that far from a lack of interest, the horseback riding classes have been full the past two years.

“I think everyone was upset,” Reiley said, patting Velvet’s belly as the mare munched grass.

Magdaleno, the manager, said he understood the decision.

“I think the university’s been fair,” he said. “When I came in here, it was year-to-year.”

He said the college will attempt to continue offering the horseback riding lessons at another site.

And Magdaleno, who also works as the baseball coach at Ventura College, said he would stay on after May to dismantle the facility.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do after that,” he said.