Giving Rein to Disabled : Peters’ Equestrian Program Riding High

Kicking up dust as he ambles through his stables, Pete Peters--his legs bowed from so many years in the saddle--looks as if he would be much more comfortable on a horse.

The burly 73-year-old Moorpark rancher has a philosophy about happiness and horses, and how the two go together.

Peters believes that riding can even rescue people from some of the hardships of living with a disability.

He doesn’t analyze it or ponder why. Peters has simply learned that sometimes you can draw out the best in disabled children and adults by putting them in the saddle, giving them the reins and then letting them ride.

“They’re in control for once,” he said. “Their mother or father may tend to shelter them--which is what I would probably do, too--but these kids can do so much more.

“We teach them, and then they find that they are doing things they never thought they could,” he said.

Peters began putting his philosophy to work in 1987 when he and his wife, Opal, started the nonprofit Handicapped Equestrian Learning Program, which makes a point of not coddling the riders.

Vicky Pellerito, whose daughter Anne Marie is one of Peters’ best students, said his tough-love technique helped transform her child.

Suffering from a disorder that retarded her mental development, Anne Marie always wanted to ride, but because of her disability, it was hard to find a riding school that would take her.

“We were looking around the Palos Verdes area and I think they’re a little stuck-up there,” Pellerito said. “The first time we called Pete, he just said, ‘Sure, bring her on up.’ We ended up spending the night.”

Anne Marie’s disorder made her adamant about not letting anything touch her head. She never wore hats, and she refused to wear a riding helmet.

“Pete just snapped, ‘No helmet, no riding,’ ” Pellerito said. “She had that helmet on in a flash.”

Pellerito said she has seen even more dramatic transformations.

She once saw a couple come to the ranch with their son. Although the parents were reluctant, the young boy--who had severe cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair--wanted to ride.

Peters asked the mother to look away. Then he and a trainer pulled the boy out of his wheelchair and hauled him across the corral, his heels dragging in the dirt, to start his training.

After a lot of work, the boy was able to ride, using a custom-built saddle designed by Peters, Pellerito said.

“That kid didn’t even have an awareness of his feet,” she said. “But a year later, he was out of his wheelchair using a walker.

“That’s what he can do with a child,” she said. “I mean, I don’t think he cares what these kids have. I don’t even think he understands it, but it doesn’t matter. He just treats them like real people, and they rise to the occasion.”

Peters’ gruff manner--the cussing, tattooed arms and John Wayne swagger--belie the years of patient tenderness that he has put into teaching the dozens of physically, emotionally and mentally disabled children and adults who come to his ranch.

“He’s not soft and cuddly,” Pellerito said. “He’s not the type of person who you’d think would have a heart. But he does. He has a huge heart.”

After his wife died three years ago, Peters put up a tall white cross on one of the ranch’s hilltop plateaus.

Peters minimized the action, telling Pellerito it was “no big deal.” But the cross has been up ever since.

He and his wife first moved to Moorpark in 1960, after Peters retired from the Army. Together, they raised Arabian horses on a small ranch, training some for equestrian competitions. One of their horses--Kelvin Lancer--won Horse of the Year in a national competition.

In the early 1970s, a friend asked the couple to help with an equestrian event for the blind, and that’s how they first became involved with disabled riders.

“From there, it just snowballed,” Peters said.

After the couple started their riding program, they persuaded the local chapter of the Special Olympics to include an equestrian event in its competition.

Now the local chapter holds a statewide equestrian event each summer, with about 80 riders from throughout California.

It was the couple’s involvement in the program that helped make disabled riding a regular event, said Carol Newsham, area sports manager for the Special Olympics.

Newsham was at a loss to explain just why Pete Peters became so involved.

“I’m not really sure,” she said. “It’s true that he doesn’t really seem like the type. I think it had a lot to do with Opal.”

But after his wife died, Peters continued to stage the events and train riders in the program.

“I think after Opal died he got really connected to the kids,” Newsham said, adding that after her death, the program filled a void for Peters. His energies are focused on keeping the organization going, drumming up donations, organizing fund-raisers and maintaining the ranch.

He has been a whiz at attracting celebrities and organizing events, she said. And his annual summer fund-raising barbecue has become a big event in Moorpark.

He was even able to get the 12 horses used in the program donated.

“I saved them from the glue factory,” Peters likes to say.

He has also been able to attract a lot of volunteers. Peters said he depends on the more than 25 active volunteers to keep the program going.

Lorie Michaud started volunteering three years ago.

Peters’ gruff manner and toughness has put off some volunteers, but Michaud said she has learned to deal with it.

“You learn to work with him or around him,” she said. “He means well, but he doesn’t realize that he rubs people the wrong way. He says things that wouldn’t be considered--let’s say--politically correct these days. But he’s stubborn and you can’t change him.”