Chatsworth Cowboy Relies on Horse Sense to Fend Off Local Developers

Chatsworth’s Jerry England hasn’t heard that the Old West is dead. When the blue-jeaned, cowboy-booted activist sees something that threatens equestrian culture, he jumps on his trusty palomino, Sunup, and rides out to do battle.

England’s world view is as clear as the sky over the Santa Susana Mountains after a hard rain. He believes the bad guys are land developers and others who don’t know a halter from a hatrack and think the world needs more tennis courts and fewer horses trotting through the vanishing wilderness.

“We’re really out to preserve a culture that has lasted for 100 years and is definitely threatened,” said the 59-year-old England, his face lined from thousands of rides in the Southern California sun. Like hundreds of others in Chatsworth, Old Agoura and a few other communities, England rides every day the howling winds permit.

His three horses are stabled beyond the pool of the Chatsworth ranch house he shares with his wife, Joyce, a retired teacher.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based American Horse Council, California has more horses than any other state--642,000.

Horse people and suburbanites tend to see the world differently, England said. Horse folks have rural values and expectations, which include tolerance for flies, dust and smells that sometimes accompany horses, he said. Most suburban dwellers, he said, would rather live without the perfume of equestrian life and don’t like sharing the road with big, skittish animals that might buck or bolt when an SUV roars by.

To give the local equestrian community some clout, England founded Chatsworth Equine Cultural Heritage Organization, or ECHO, in 2000. He estimates there are 700 horses in Chatsworth, many of them boarded by people who live elsewhere.

“There’s a hard-core active group of about 300 who are fighting with their money, their time and their mouths,” he said.

England organized a mounted protest in July against a 21-lot subdivision planned for 6.7 acres in the heart of Chatsworth horse country. Proposed by Airport Commission President Ted Stein, the project was approved by the Los Angeles City Council in October but faces a lawsuit brought by the Chatsworth Land Preservation Assn.

In July, 162 protesters rode horses down Topanga Canyon Boulevard, accompanied by 140 supporters on foot.

England is also worried about a 484-house project planned by a group called Presidio Chatsworth Partners in the unincorporated area north of the Ronald Reagan Freeway. The project, which has no provision for horses, would have “a huge impact on the horse community,” he said.

“Every time you take away the horse-keeping rights on a piece of land, you’re never going to get them back,” England said.

Even before the houses go up, England believes the project would create problems for riders: “It’s going to bring in heavy equipment and trucks that horses are afraid of,” he said.

England has confronted local politicians, including Councilman Hal Bernson, asking why the city doesn’t abide by the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch master plan, which requires the area to remain horse country. He has fought for improved horse trails and a better warning system at a spot where horses cross Metrolink tracks. He has publicly decried dumping in nearby Deer Lake Highlands Park and other wilderness areas.

Actor Errol Flynn once had a hunting lodge in Deer Lake Canyon, England pointed out. Now, he said, “People drive up into the canyons and dump refrigerators, desks, sofas, old cars, lots of broken glass and drums leaking some sort of liquid.”

England is also troubled by the homeless who build campfires in the area. “I’m worried about a real Oakland, a conflagration,” said England, referring to the costly 1991 Oakland hills blaze.

England first got on a horse when he was 7. Buck Jones and Tim McCoy, cowboy stars of the 1940s and ‘50s, were childhood idols, as was the triumvirate of great TV cowboys--Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

In 1991, England was working for Glen-Fed Development, a home-building subsidiary of Glendale Federal Bank, when he was laid off. In his spare time, he was making wood furniture with Western motifs.

“When I started building this furniture and got laid off, my lifestyle changed,” said England, whose conversion to all things Western includes writing cowboy poetry.

Nationwide, equestrian activists such as England are fighting for horse trails, pro-horse zoning and other equine-friendly legislation, according to Kandee Haertel, executive director of Equestrian Land Conservation Resource, based in Galena, Ill. She could not estimate their numbers, but she gets hundreds of queries each month from concerned riders.

Because keeping horses is so time-consuming, Haertel said, many riders don’t bother to take political action. “The horse activist community is very fragmented,” she said.

England hopes to ride for at least 15 more years, although he needs to stand on something to mount a horse these days. “You hope people don’t look,” he said.

England views horses as an integral part of the world he sees on his morning rides. “It’s a pristine area. It’s got coyotes, bobcats, the occasional mountain lion, deer and every kind of raptor you can think of.”

The Internet has made it easy to communicate with the riders and to send out mass mailings, England said. But if his technology is new, the code he lives by is older than reruns of “The Lone Ranger.”

“Hoppy, Gene and Roy showed us the way to fight, good versus evil,” said England, who says he can all but see the black hats on his opponents when he faces them down. “I know there’s going to be change, but it can be friendly change.”