Ensuring a Stable Environment

On a clear, brisk day, Lisa Edwards shouted directions to her two best students, who circled the arena on horses which, like their 15-year-old riders, appeared to be enjoying themselves.

“Reverse with a flying lead change,” instructed Edwards, garbed in the expected English riding pants, boots and chambray shirt. On command, Sampson and Top Hat switched in mid-canter their lead leg.

“Good. Now get them to stretch out and get them ready to jump,” Edwards called. Amanda Beisner, on Top Hat, and Christine Hudgins, on Sampson, happily obliged.

The two Newbury Park girls are among the 100 or so who take English-riding lessons each week from Edwards at Two Winds Ranch. It’s a program that didn’t even exist until a year ago.

And that’s the irony. While classes in both western and English riding are booming, stable space is becoming a rare commodity in the Conejo Valley.

In the past two years, Thousand Oaks has lost two of its four stables. Cal Lutheran University closed its facility in May 1995 and the Academy Equestrian Center in Newbury Park quietly moved to Somis in November.

The two remaining stables are Two Winds in the western part of the city, which currently boards 100 horses at an interim site, and Foxfield Riding School in the east, which boards about 80 horses and has a waiting list.

Looking to increase, well, the stability of the equestrian offerings, city and park officials will discuss Wednesday where the best place would be for a city-owned center.

A public facility that would include boarding stables, horse rentals and an arena for equestrian-related events would likely replace Two Winds. The ranch, which for 25 years operated on private property north of Potrero Road, is now living on borrowed time on public open space south of the rural drive that dissects rolling green hills and swaths of unspoiled pasture.

*

When his lease expires, in a maximum of 3 1/2 years, Two Winds owner Alvin “Bully” Caddin can compete with other operators for the opportunity to run the proposed city-owned equestrian center.

“Caddin doesn’t have a lock on it,” said Michael Berger, a board member of the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, a joint effort of the city and Conejo Recreation and Park District. The agency’s board will meet Wednesday and expects to make a decision on the best site as early as September.

Caddin doesn’t even want to talk about it. As far as he’s concerned, he still has 3 1/2 years to make Two Winds a success, a horse ranch for the masses, to his way of thinking. Pushed on whether he’ll be a part of any bidding process to run a permanent facility, Caddin is noncommittal.

“I’m going to run this place till I’m done, and then I’ll see,” he said.

Already he can see the signs of development from his rustic ranch.

Across Potrero Road sit hundreds of stair-stepped building pads, the raw earth exposed like a plucked chicken, where more than 2,000 homes will be built as part of the Dos Vientos housing development.

COSCA members are likely to choose a site for its ease of access to both streets and horse trails, according to a staff report. Other criteria may include the surrounding area’s compatibility with such a project, the convenience to the public and current zoning.

*

Included in the nine potential sites for an equestrian center are:

* Four locations at 600-acre Broome Ranch, including the current site of Two Winds and property along the eastern property line, the southwest and the western portions of the ranch.

* Wildwood Mesa at the western end of Avenida de los Arboles.

* Lang Ranch northeast of Avenida de los Arboles and Westlake Boulevard.

* Conejo Ridge open space at the southern end of Sundown Road.

* Los Robles open space at the southern end of Moorpark Road.

* Rancho Conejo open space north of Wendy Drive and the Ventura Freeway.

That last location would be near the former site of the Academy Equestrian Center, which unceremoniously moved from its high-visibility location along the Ventura Freeway to Somis in November to make way for a new shopping center on the Seventh-day Adventist property. Owner Jim Frazier said he would have liked to have stayed in the Conejo Valley, but there was no comparable site.

“If there would’ve been, we would’ve stayed,” Frazier said. “It’s all money in the end. You can’t fight the expansion. You can’t fight the development.”

Frazier said he lost 30% of his riding students and 20% of his boarders when he made the move.

The Academy Equestrian Center’s exit may be one of the reasons for the success of Two Winds’ English-riding program. For its first 25 years, the ranch offered western-style riding lessons only, along with boarding stables and public rentals. A year ago January, Edwards started offering English lessons under the moniker Conejo Valley Equestrian Center.

Amanda Lee, 7, of Newbury Park is one of hundreds in the Conejo Valley who have the English-riding bug. “I’ve always wanted to jump and canter. You have to learn to canter first before you jump. I was thinking how heavy the western saddle is. I was thinking I wanted to jump higher.”

Seeing the joy on her daughter’s face encouraged Amanda’s mother, Priscilla Lee, to get back on a horse after 30 years. Looking at the craggy mountains that jut to the south, she said, “Can’t you just feel the stress melt away?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FYI

The Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Forum Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.