Out for a Drive : City Slickers Ride Herd in Prelude to Rancho Santa Margarita Rodeo

Whoops of “Whoa, Nellie!” and “Get ‘em on up!” rang out Friday as 60 wrangler wanna-bes herded 100 head of cattle four miles through canyon terrain from San Juan Capistrano to the rodeo grounds here.

From Oso Parkway through the Chiquita Canyon, across Antonio Parkway then alongside the distant Foothill Transportation Corridor, doctors, real estate agents and homemakers alike--assisted by a few cow dogs--successfully brought the herd home, zigzagging through wilderness and brush.

Today and Sunday, the very same steers will be roped, ridden or wrestled to the ground as part of the annual Fiesta Rodeo. Activities begin at 1 p.m., but for some, all the fun is already over.

“I’m not a cowboy. I’m a firefighter by trade, but there’s nothing like bringing ‘em home,” said David Hubert, 55, a Coto de Caza resident who, like the others, paid $125 to play the role of a real-life cowboy for an afternoon.

Others, however, probably were wondering what prompted them to pay money to get into the saddle, especially the two who were thrown from their horses halfway through the drive--Coto de Caza Rotary Club President Len Matheson and design manager Michael J. Schreiber.

“It’s nothing to spill beer over,” remarked one cowboy, after witnessing Schreiber’s fall from grace.

Jokes were nonstop along the way, as the wranglers herded the livestock through the vast emptiness of the Chiquita Canyon, which was occasionally interrupted by the sight of newly built tract homes.

“Hey, where’s the hay wagon?” asked one rider from his horse.

“This is the hay wagon,” shot back the driver of a four-wheel-drive vehicle. “Just say ‘Hey!’ and I’ll get you a beer.”

What’s the hardest part about a cattle drive?

“Getting on the horse,” said Brian Gentner, a lawyer from Coto de Caza. “Or getting off the horse, on second thought.”

Some riders couldn’t help but bring work with them, chatting on cellular phones as they moved the cattle.

Others appeared to concentrate only on the ride.

“This kind of stuff is fun because I don’t get to do it all that much with my dad these days--not like I used to,” said Matt Love, 22, who grew up learning about herding from his father, Fred Love, a ranchman.

The elder Love, a Lake Forest resident, was the man leading the drive. And his philosophy behind getting the cattle to mind: “If you guide them, if you get to setting their heads in one direction, and only one direction, then they’ll go where you push them.”

So the wranglers--including a few professionals to help out in case things got sticky--steered the steers straight for the rodeo grounds, where dozens of people eagerly waited.

As a reward for a job well done, they sat down to a dinner of steak and potatoes. Later in the evening there was roping competition to see who could lasso the fastest.

A lot of the same will be going on today and Sunday. Hundreds of city slickers and country folk alike are expected to descend on the rodeo grounds at Santa Margarita Parkway and Las Flores Drive to watch such contests as figure-eight barrel racing, bronco riding and bull-dogging.

Also on hand will be a booth to test your quick draw. The carnival rides will open at 11 a.m.

Now in its fifth year, the Fiesta Rodeo celebrates the anniversary of the community of Rancho Santa Margarita, which opened nine years ago. A master-planned community of 5,000 acres at the base of Saddleback Mountain, Rancho Santa Margarita is home to 23,000 residents, but it is designed for 20,000 more.

The money raised from the cattle drive will go to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, said Denny Glenn, a Coto de Caza Rotary Club member.

“All the fun is for a good cause,” he said.