WILD ROSE RANCH My Lifelong Obsession with Magnificent Animals
	NOVEMBER 2004

by Bettike Paul
Photos by Russell Byrne

I rode my first horse when I was only two years old. My parents, who were non-horse people, couldn’t figure out why their little daughter kept crying out “Horse! Horse!” all the time.

As I grew older my desk became filled with stacks of papers, complete with detailed drawings of the stables I would someday build and the horses I would someday ride. I even gave names to my still-imaginary horses.

Some of the horses in my stables right now got their names when I was a young girl writing down lists that included the horses I would own in the future that I was certain would one day come to me.

I always had a horse, which wasn’t unusual in the Danville neighborhood where I grew up, because back in those days most residents had a horse or two in the back yard.

I loved my home as a child — especially because of the unsurpassed views of Mt. Diablo that our location provided. I rode the trails and roads on Mt. Diablo for 12 years. It was our playground. We kids discovered hidden places on that mountain that perhaps nobody knows about even today.

I often look at that beautiful summit from my porch and remember those wonderful days. It was my home. When I’m returning from a trip, my eye begins scanning the horizon for a first glimpse of Mt Diablo long before it actually began to stick its head up over the edge of the world.

Fairytale Childhood
I was born in the Philippines but moved to Danville when I was eight years old. As a child my friends and I would ride horses together six or seven times a week. You can ride for days on Diablo’s great flanks without ever crossing your own path.

I was still a child when the Mt. Diablo Trail Ride Association opened in Clayton. The site was simply a strip of barns, a pool, and a kitchen area. It would be our destination when we would ride over the mountain from our home community of Diablo, spend the night, then ride back. The trip must have been 20 miles or so each way, since we would ride from the extreme western side of the mountain almost to the extreme eastern side.

My brother and I would go on group rides up Diablo. The two of us belonged to a riding club for kids from Stone Valley Road called “Double-D Riders.” Double-D began a drill team and developed into a riding club. The club would sponsor “play days” and horse shows.

Some summer mornings we would get up early and go on a breakfast ride — riding together up to a lovely place called Barbecue Terrace. Our parents would drive up there early in order to make us breakfast. Thirty of us would be riding together in the morning sunshine and reached the magical place where we could begin to smell the bacon. That was almost as good as my childhood ever was.

I never lost my love for horses. My own daughter got into riding at age ten. Deborrah Oliver is now 38 years old and still riding and showing.

My husband, Mike, is a lifelong resident of California. He got into horses for his own protection, I guess, because he realized he was getting into a “love me; love my horses,” kind of a relationship. Mike’s a real wrangler now, taking care of our animals and helping other ranchers around the area.

Raising Horses
We bought this land in Brentwood seven years ago, moving here from Walnut Creek. We had a place in the mountains, near Doyle (by Susanville) also called Wild Rose. Our current ranch is officially called Wild Rose II.

From the beginning we knew that we wanted to raise quality horses so we purchased some brood mares and bred them to the highest quality stallions. We are breeding “performance” horses, which means that they are intended to work as reining and cutting horses.

In a sense, the world became our oyster when the breeding association began to permit the use of shipped semen. This permitted us to breed our mares to champion stallions from all over the country.

For example, we now have a colt by Great Red Pine — a stallion that is ranked among the top ten reining horses in the US. Most of our animals are cutting horses because we’re introducing something new into East County by evolving Wild Rose Ranch into the area’s premier cutting facility.

We recently invited Dan Simpson, who is a premier cutting horse trainer, to become part of our staff. Dan has earned $800,000 in NCHA (National Cutting Horse Association) prize money. Dan shows cutting horses in the open or works with non-pros so they can show their own horses.

We have facilities for about sixty horses in our stables. We keep brood mares in one field and yearlings in another. We begin training young horses at about age two.

We also board about a dozen horses for riding and dressage. Dan’s wife, Danielle, is a specialist in teaching dressage and English riding.

At Wild Rose Ranch we also provide special services for horses who are recovering from some injury requiring round-the-clock attention.

Creating the Dream
Our beautiful ranch is the outcome of a lot of saving and scrimping. I worked for a dermatologist for fifteen years and then sunk my entire life savings and all my energy into horses. The ranch grew from a small breeding program into the complete facilities that we have today.

For the first eight months this place was a ranch with no animals. We developed our current facilities on ten acres of raw dirt. We put up the barns, built every fence, and planted every tree on the place.

During the first year of operation I commuted every day, an hour each way, from my home in Walnut Creek. Most days I would go home at ten at night and return at seven in the morning. During those nine hours at home I had to pay bills, keep track of correspondence, do laundry, etc, while trying to squeeze a few hours of sleep into the schedule.

Finally I decided we either had to put up a house on the property or I would go crazy. We ordered a modular home from a place in Mantica and six weeks later moved in. I bought that place like some men buy a suit — “That one!” — and we’re living in the first model I looked at.

When we moved in, a tiny trailer provided the property’s only shade. One of the first things we did was to plant more that 130 trees, including poplars, ash, flowering pear, hackberry, pepper trees, and sycamores. The ranch now has many places that are cool, green, and shady. I just wish we could plant even more. No such thing as too many trees, in my opinion.

I wanted everything on our ranch to be horse safe, with no poisonous bushes or plants. When we took possession of the property almost the only green you could see was a poisonous weed called fiddleneck. Some people call this tarweed. It’s an obnoxious plant with long fuzzy leaves and curling yellow flowers. This plant is extremely toxic and can kill a horse.

I spent five years fighting The Great Fiddleneck War. There were a lot of battles and I spent countless hours picking these things by hand. I filled barrels and barrels with the stuff. It was a hard fight, but I won the war! During all last year I only ever found two of these weeds.

The reason I picked the fiddleneck by hand is because I did not want to use poison on our property. I’m determined that the land on Wild Rose Ranch will never have a drop of any harmful chemical substance; it will always remain clear.

Coping with Plagues and Varmints
Trying to run a ranch always provides challenges. Sometimes it seems that every year we have to endure some biblical-type pestilence.

A few years ago, right after El Nino, the whole place was covered by frogs. They covered the driveways, barn floors, and walls. It seemed like it took Mike 15 minutes to get out the driveway because he kept trying not to squish frogs with the pickup.

Finally I told him, “Just drive, Mike! Twenty or so less frogs aren’t going to make any difference this year!”

Another year it was crickets. Last year it was an infestation of sow bugs of truly monstrous proportions. I remember going into the back barn and they were there in the billions — heaped up in drifts against the wall like there had been a sow bug blizzard.

That was really disgusting — like some science fiction movie. “Attack of the Sow Bugs!” You couldn’t take a step without smooshing twenty of them.

Mike got a snow shovel and filled three barrels full, before he finally quit. He still wasn’t finished, he just quit.

Another year we were plagued with wasps. I went through cans and cans of wasp spray.

So now we’re thinking, What will it be this year? Please, God, don’t send us snakes.

We have some ongoing aggravations. Ground squirrels and gophers are both more than a pain in the neck, they dig holes that are really dangerous for horses.

We have some allies against the gophers. Our ranch is home to some burrowing owls that help us in that fight. The squirrels are too big for the owls, unfortunately, so we’re praying for eagles.

Filling our Days with Work and Love
It takes time to manage everything. Running this place is very time-consuming. Sometimes it is physically exhausting. On a ranch there’s always something to fix. We’re always running out in the middle of the night for a broken water pipe, or a sick horse.

Even when there is no obvious problem, I’m walking through the barns from early to late — 10 p.m. 11, midnight, 6 a.m. I’m constantly making sure that our horses are comfortable, eating OK, have water, and are safe.

Average-size horses weigh between 900 and 1,200 pounds. They are huge, strong animals, but they have very delicate constitutions. For example, they get colicky, which is caused by many things, including a change in the weather, too little water, or they feel stressed by something.

It’s fun to complain about all the problems, but the fact is that I feel like I’m in heaven. I wake up in the morning and my wonderful animals are always right outside my door.

I almost never leave this place. A few years ago I went to nephew’s wedding in Wisconsin. It was fun, but when I got out of the car in our yard, all I could think was that everything just smelled right. I love being around the animals. I love feeding them, brushing them, and talking to them.

I love their smell and enjoy walking up to one of them and have him nicker his greetings, hoping that I brought a carrot with me. Horses can be your best friends. It is amazing how they let us ride them and control them.

Our clients — the group of people we’re associated with — have also been unbelievable, even phenomenal. They really care about their horses and most of them strive constantly to improve their skills. They are a group of truly devoted owners. This has made it easy for us to run this place.

We quit going on vacation. We wake up in the morning in the best place we can be. With the best people we can know, doing the best thing we know to do.

And besides all that, Mt. Diablo is always in view right out my back door for me to look at, and be grateful once again for my life, my memories, and my wonderful Wild Rose Ranch.