46 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
e
California Hoofbeats
There’s a horse arena underneath
the Hollywood sign?! Who knew?
Horses, Heights
and Hollywood:
A Sunday Ride
Above Los
Angeles
By Susan Friedland-Smith
Nestled in a desert canyon at the base of the Santa Monica
Mountains lies Sunset Ranch, an equestrian center as iconic as
the Hollywood sign perching atop the golden hills nearby. The
ranch has been around since Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo
were making movies in the 1920s, and its main red barn exudes
a cowboy exterior: handsome in spite of being a little worn by the
elements.
An old porcelain bathtub serves as a water trough, while cactus
and scrub brush cling to the dry slopes framing the ranch. It’s
hard to conceive there are tourists just several bustling blocks
away, snapping photos of stars in the sidewalk and visiting a wax
museum.
West Meets Old West
My husband and I decided to take a Sunset Ranch afternoon
trail ride to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. We opted
for the two-hour route, which boasts a lookout point featuring
panoramic views of Los Angeles and the surrounding valleys.
Two years earlier, I took the sunset dinner ride, which combined
five hours in the saddle with a jaunt past the Los Angeles
Equestrian Center. We even dismounted at a Mexican restaurant
and dined while our horses were tied to a hitching post. I learned
that day that five hours in the saddle at a walk are five long hours,
even with the sparkling lights of Tinseltown smiling up at me from
the valley below.
To get to the ranch, we drove to Hollywood and turned onto
Beachwood, a gradually ascending residential street flanked
by apartments that gave way to stately properties closer to the
foothills. I mused that the apartments housed aspiring actors and
the grand homes with impeccable landscaping near the street’s
end belonged to the stars who’ve become household names. At
Living on the edge in Los Angeles! Notice the neck reining
attempts to steer my mount away from the drop-off are not
working.
