Riding with Reagan

By Paula Parisi January 5, 2011

Feb. 6, 2011 was the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, and a day worth celebrating. For many, the man who would become the 40th president of the United States exemplified many fine qualities. Humble, hard-working and down-to-earth, this was a man who chopped wood “for fun,” loved horses and respected nature.

In her autobiography, My Turn, Nancy Reagan said she “knew almost nothing about riding when I first met Ronnie, but I soon realized that if I wanted to marry this man I’d have to trade in my tennis racket for a saddle.” She learned well enough to sit a placid old Quarter Horse, throwing in with her husband on Sunday hacks. But Reagan himself favored more spirited mounts – Arabians and Thoroughbreds. A common misconception is that the Reagans were wealthy and lived opulent, self-indulgent lives. That was hardly the case. Before he met Nancy, Reagan owned a seven acre ranch in Northridge, where he would spend weekends and reportedly cleaned the stalls himself. After they were married, the couple purchased a 300 acre retreat in the hills of Agoura, in what is now Malibu State Park. Essentially a barn with a ramshackle house attached, Nancy spent a good deal of energy dodging mice. In the house!

The original barn still stands, and there is a fundraising effort underway through Equestrian Trails Inc. to establish the Ronald Reagan Equestrian Campground on the site.  Located in a meadow at the junction of Mulholland Highway and Cornell Road, the area is large enough to accommodate horse trailers, the idea being that visitors could set up a base camp from which to explore the Santa Monica Mountains on horseback. (Some area residents are objecting on the grounds that the horse trailers constitute an industrial-type use.)

Eventually, when he became California’s 33rd governor, they purchased a 688-acre property in the hills of Santa Barbara that they named Rancho del Cielo, “Ranch in the Heavens,” or “Sky” (depending on one’s world view). For Reagan, it was a kind of heaven. Those closest to him say he was never personally happier than when he was at the ranch, riding, tooling around in his jeep or clearing brush. Even when he was President, from 1981-1989, he took every opportunity to return to what came to be known as “the Western White House.” (Though he and Nancy never called it that, they did name the winding road leading to their front door Pennsylvania Avenue.

Though he entertained the Queen of England and Margaret Thatcher at the Rancho, the main residence is an almost shockingly simple adobe structure. The Reagans spent many happy hours at the ranch, riding the hills and gliding in their canoe, the Tru Luv, on their own little Lake Lucky in the front yard.

The barn accommodated 30 horses, and several were kept there for the Secret Service to use, accompanying the President on his trail rides. A delightful description of a this rural Reagan is offered in former Secret Service agent John Barletta’s Riding with Reagan. The book is filled with wonderful anecdotes from the 10 years Barletta was the President’s primary riding partner. One particularly touching insight is how Reagan would personally bury each of his pets in an animal cemetery, choosing with care rocks from the property to serve as tombstones on which he would hand-carve inscriptions. “It’s important to respect that they had a life,” was Reagan’s philosophy. Barletta describes Reagan as a man with “cowboy values,” whose handshake was his bond.

Today, Rancho del Cielo is a research center, selectively available for corporate retreats under the stewardship of the Young America’s Foundation, which purchased the property in 1998, five years before the President’s death on June 5, 2004. The last time Reagan visited his beloved ranch was 1995, but to anyone who sets foot on the property, it’s pretty obvious that there, more than anywhere, his spirit lives on.

For more information, visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library at www.reaganlibrary.com.

 

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