Flintridge Riding Club turns 85

Members of Flintridge Riding Club are gearing up for the club’s 85th birthday party. The event will be celebrated Sept. 5 with picnic and family movie for members and their guests. There’s also a dinner dance planned on Oct. 18, to kick off a year of celebration.

And, though most events are planned for members and their guests, the public is invited to the club’s annual “Flintridge Autumn Classic,” Sept. 26 through 28, when the community has a free opportunity to view some of the equestrian events and purchase commemorative items.

The movie selected for the Sept. 5 event is the Dean Jones and Kurt Russell, Disney film, “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit,” which was filmed at Flintridge Riding Club in the 1960s. Some of the then-junior members of the club were in the film and, in payment for use of the facility, the Disney Company paid for the construction of the juniors’ portion of the clubhouse.

The Flintridge Riding Club is one of the most prestigious riding clubs in Southern California and has trained a plethora of local equestrians. In addition to being used by paid members of the club, several area groups use the club’s riding facilities for public and private events and activities.

Some members of the Rose Bowl Riders, as well as La Cañada High School’s championship winning Interscholastic Equestrian League use the club. The club also participates in community activities, provides hay bales for the Kiwanis Club’s annual Soap Box Derby and “has always had a tradition of being generous to the Trails Council,” which meets regularly at the riding club, said Randy Strapazon, a member of both the Flintridge Riding Club and La Cañada Flintridge Trails Council.

One benefit of the club is its close proximity to area riding trails, Strapazon said.

The Flintridge Riding Council was one of three significant local projects created through the vision of Flintridge namesake, Senator Frank Flint: the Flintridge Riding Club, a hotel, that later became Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and a golf course, which is currently the site of La Cañada High School and St. Francis High School.

“Of the three, the only one that has remained of Senator Flint’s vision is the riding club,” Strapazon said. The club was formally incorporated on Oct. 9, 1923.

Initially, the founding group purchased 10 acres from Flint. An additional 30 acres were later purchased, according to information provided by the club.

Although none of the club’s current members have been there for 85 years, members boast that at least one 84-year-old club member still participates in riding competitions, and many of the now-adult members grew up riding at the facility.

One of the club’s trainers, Heidi Misrahy, 48, of Toluca Lake, started riding at the club when she was 3 years old. Misrahy said she has always loved riding and appreciates all that the club has to offer.

“This is a beautiful facility and you wouldn’t be able to build anything now like the barns that were built here all those years ago,” she said.

During lunch at the club Tuesday, a few of the members looked over some old photographs and reminisced on horses and riders who’ve passed through the club in the past several decades. “That horse had the whitest mane and tail and the biggest dapples you’ve ever seen,” said former Pasadena schoolteacher and longtime club member Gail Martin, of a photograph of longtime equestrian and club member Diane Dixon jumping the aforementioned horse, named “Could Be,” back in the 1960s.

A love of horses enticed Martin to ride and stable a horse at the club when she was in college, 57 years ago. Martin’s current 18-year-old thoroughbred, Babs, was born and trained at the riding club and is still stabled there, Martin said.

Through the years, the club has evolved with members’ preferences, and currently offers a lot more opportunities to advance as a rider, Martin said.

“It used to be just hunter and jumper [training], now they’ve added dressage, eventing and western. It’s also become much more informal and there are a lot more instructors. It used to be you had just one instructor, now you have your choice,” she said, adding that the club also is a great place for social interaction, since it’s “friendly instead of snobby.”

The beauty of the facility also isn’t lost on club members. “That’s the one thing that makes this place so nice,” Martin said of the property’s about 50 Heritage oak trees, some of which are between 350 and 400 years old, she said.

The trees are lovely and provide shade on even the warmest summer days, agreed club member Chris Warner.

Longtime La Cañadan Gail Montury, 62, who now lives in Pasadena, became involved with the club about 20 years ago, when her daughters, Charmaine and Allison, were children and avid horse enthusiasts.

“My children wanted to ride, we had our horses in the backyard at the time, and so we trailered the horses here for riding and the girls were junior riders,” she said.

“It was a great family atmosphere,” she added.

Flintridge Riding Club Board member Nancy Dunton, 55, also joined the club about 20 years ago.

Dunton said she always wanted to ride as a child and when their daughter started pre-school, her husband gave her a membership as a gift.

“It has been a wonderful gift,” she said.