The Best Life The Miracle of Skylark Ranch July 2006

Shaun and Alex Skylark
Photos by Russell Byrne

We’re living the life that both of us dreamed about for years. I actually worked for a year on a ranch when I was a kid and developed an itch for horses that I hadn’t been able to scratch until last year when we built Skylark Ranch. My wife, Alex, was raised on a ranch in New Mexico, which she says provided her with a sense of identity. Her mother, Phoebe, grew up riding horses. From early adulthood Alex has thought of herself as a horsewoman.

Our Twisting Road to Ranching
Our path to ranch ownership was anything but direct. For three decades I’ve been in the piano business as owner of Skylark Piano Service. I had the honor of being one of the first Americans ever invited to study at the Bösendorfer Piano Manufacturing Company in Vienna. I spent six weeks intensively studying the nurture and care of those world-class instruments. Since then I’ve been the exclusive area service representative, covering a territory that extends from Gilroy up to Healdsburg and over to Sacramento. Sometimes, however, I’ll make service calls as far away as Reno. People spend as much as $200,000 for one of these incomparable pianos and they demand (and can afford) the best service possible.

I met my wife, Alex, when she was an escrow officer in Los Angeles. In fact, we met while she was conducting an escrow on a house I was selling. When I first saw her sitting behind her desk in her Armani outfit, I asked her for a date in front of the entire staff.

I guess that Alex was able to tune in on the latent horseman that lay within me. At any rate, she says that she was attracted by my sincerity and compassion. She felt that I provided a welcome counterpoint to the artificial Los Angeles concentration upon money and empty style. She was ready to change her life and claims that I helped her find her heart. If so, her discovery was part of a symbiotic transaction since I felt that she helped me discover my own true self, as well.

Alex has a wonderful instinct for knowing when something is right. When I told her about my lifelong dream to build a ranch, she immediately said, “We can do that!” We began looking at properties together. The day we first saw our rural Brentwood property the two of us experienced something like a defining moment. We both recognized that we were being given a unique opportunity, and we knew that it was the best – and possibly the last – chance we would ever have of making our dream come true. We subsequently faced a lot of challenges in bringing the dream to pass beginning with figuring out how to purchase the land. That was the easy part. Next we had to design and build both our house and our stables. After that we had to face the challenge of attracting people and horses.

“If We Build It They Will Come”
We started our ranch as a total leap in the dark. Without knowing what we were actually doing we simply bought the land and then began to design and construct our buildings. We had a “Field of Dreams” attitude about the project: “If we build it, they will come.” Just when we needed them, people with the right stuff seemed to be carried by some thrilling tide to our front door. We had “built it” and darned if “they” didn’t “come.”

For example, Jessica March showed up one day. Jessica is the complete ranch manager. She wears eight different hats around here, I think, and takes responsibility for everything from the animals, to lessons, to office management.

We needed to find a trainer as well as horses to occupy the large, modern facility we were building. Then Shari Roder came driving up one day, bringing with her a wealth of experience, first class instruction skills, plus 32 horses. Shari had been planning to make a change and someone brought her to see Skylark Ranch. When she met us and saw our operation things just clicked. Shari is one of the finest horse trainers I ever met and a genuine horse whisperer. Clients come from places like Half Moon Bay and Bakersfield just to benefit from the quality of her instruction. With Shari’s arrival Skylark Ranch sprang overnight into full operation.

Besides bringing clients and their horses with her, Shari brought Shannon Eells who had been working with Shari for five years. Shannon shows horses at regional equestrian events. She also helps condition our horses and gives lessons to the smallest riders, including our 5-year-old son Griffin, who has come to the point where he no longer wants to ride with anyone else.

Shannon plays games with her young learners. One of their favorite games is “Run Shannon over.” Shannon will move around the ring, teaching the kids skills such as backing up. Everybody loves Shannon. She’s so talented and full of grace; but she’s a genuinely humble and unassuming individual.

Shari also brought Barbara Kristiansen with her. She is our intermediate teacher. Barbara bought a horse that was bound for the soap factory and in five years turned it into one of the best jumpers that Shari says she ever saw. In the process Barbara experienced the euphoria of creating a loving member of our society out of a rejected animal. Shari says that Barbara is a mind reader. When a problem arises, Barbara will get something Shari needs out of the tack room before she can ask for it.

Lauren Kobata was another great addition to the Skylark Ranch team. Lauren recently turned 16. She has owned four horses, and purchased every one of them with her own money. In particular, she trained from a yearling a Quarter Pony named Lucky. We never met a more hard-working animal than Lucky. Lauren taught him how to bow and to “park” – stretching his four legs out on the ground so that she can get on him bareback. Lauren also “legs-up” our horses, which means that she keeps them in condition by riding and schooling them. If a horse has an issue of some kind, Lauren is there to get the animal back in line. She keeps our horses fine-tuned, just as I do with my client’s pianos. Lauren’s work is amazing; plus she’s sweet to have around.

The Life of Skylark
Alex and I lead lives that revolve around two central points including Skylark Ranch and our son, Griffin. In an important sense, we bought this place to provide Griffin an environment where he could grow up among people who love him and around animals who could teach him about life. Caring for horses is a wonderful way to learn the lessons of responsibility, tolerance, compassion, and patience.

Skylark Ranch is developing into an extended family that grows every day. A common experience at other stables is for people simply to show up and go riding. We’ve created a place where people like to come and where they can find the help they need. One young client bought a horse and stabled it at another place, but didn’t know how to care for her animal. Nobody at the other stable had paid the slightest attention to the confused young girl. Her experience with us is altogether different because someone is always around to help her with problems, give her riding tips, and teach her how to tack her horse and care for him properly. The young girl and her horse spend a lot of high-quality time together. She’s like a lot of our clients – grinning while she complains about the hard work involved in caring for her horse. She knows that horse ownership is a good thing for her.

As of this writing we have 56 horses on the property. The ranch owns 11, Shari has five. The rest are stabled here and we attend to their feeding, care, and training. We have very few pleasure horses; under Shari’s influence, most of the animals end up becoming show horses.

Shari, who has the gift of pulling previously unsuspected qualities out of both people and horses is a real inspiration. She has amazing abilities to turn discarded horses into champion-quality animals. Eighty percent of the horses she works with were in desperate shape when she got them. Shari worked most of them into show quality.

We train hunters, jumpers, trail, and working horses. We teach both Western and English style riding. We really enjoy training working cow horses. We teach both riders and horses to herd and cut cows. Some ranchers loan us cows that we work with while they fatten up on our pastures. We never seem to have enough of these so we recently purchased a remarkable product called a Pro-Cutter, which is an artificial, remote-control cow. The cow can be controlled either by the rider or trainer. The operator can make the cow start, stop, turn around, or face-up – at speeds ranging from 0 to 16 MPH. It’s a wonderful device because, unlike real cows — which can be obstinate, uncooperative beasts – the Pro-Cutter can simulate exactly the behaviors desired – and can repeat them over-and-over to reinforce learning through drill-and-practice.

Changing the World One Rider at a Time
Horses require hard work and provide their owners and handlers valuable experience in such things as developing patience and handling frustration, as well as providing amazing rewards and paybacks. Horses often become a Zen thing for all of us at Skylark Ranch. They ground us. We have been privileged observers of processes by which clients come to amazing experiences of fulfillment and self-realization. One 70-year old client is renewing himself and feels that he has embarked upon a whole new level of life and living. Another man in his 40s survived a near-death experience. His heart ceased beating during an operation and he awoke with a profound conviction that the Universe had given him a second chance at making different choices and living life on a higher level. He had been “working his butt off for his family,” to paraphrase his actual words, but while doing so he didn’t get to see much of his family for whom he had been working so hard.

So the man decided to “Live Like He Was Dying,’ as Tim McGraw said he should. All he’s missing is “2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.” But instead he’s got Charlie – a quarter horse that we found for him. His wife wanted to buy him a horse for his birthday but keep it a secret. We gave the guy a lesson on Charlie and told him, “We’re thinking about purchasing this animal for a lesson horse. We want to see what you think of him.” He absolutely fell in love with the animal, never suspecting that it was intended to be his birthday present.

When the big day arrived, we put glitter on the horse’s hooves and plaited ribbons in his mane, together with a big “Happy Birthday” sign. It was a beautiful moment because the guy had no idea about what was coming. “Whose birthday is it?” he asked?

“It’s yours, knucklehead,” his wife said. He actually burst into tears. The man looks like a weight lifter and we were all moved by how profoundly affected he was by the gift.

People gravitate to horses as sources for solace and well-being. Our tagline is “Ride/Breath/Reconnect.” Taylor, for example, has Cerebral Palsy. She is a 14-year-old friend of Jessica’s children. Following her 12th operation, Taylor had gone into depression so Jessica took her horseback riding. The experience touched something deep in that extraordinary girl’s heart. We found her a horse to sponsor. She was out here riding only a week after her most recent surgery.

Taylor possesses a wonderful gift for riding. We can throw her on any horse and she exerts complete control over the animal. She has told us, “The only time I feel really alive and normal is when I’m on my horse.” She beams with radiant smiles, and sometimes will even get tears of joy, which usually sets the rest of us to bawling, as well. Taylor is unassumingly courageous. By her example she teaches us lessons about dignity and grace. If I’m ever tempted to feel sorry for myself, I’m instantly cured by the sight of Taylor sitting on her horse and beaming at the world.

Skylark Ranch is much too rare a place not to share with as many people as possible. “A pleasure shared is twice enjoyed,” I recently heard, and this wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying if we hoarded it for ourselves. From the beginning we aimed to make our beautiful horses and ranch available for people who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience horseback riding. Skylark Ranch is a happy place with a lot of focus upon children. We eventually plan to conduct camps for kids who are handicapped and for inner city children. We are planning for a summer day camp from Monday through Friday. We’ll teach the children how to be horse people, and we’ll put on a little show at the end of the week. We will play games together and have fun. The week will be a working camp, as well, during which children will learn the fundamentals of respect, hard work, and horsemanship.

We had a birthday party here that will be the prototype of a lot of parties to follow. We can show a bunch of kids a great time, complete with a party pavilion, egg throwing contests, sack races, and pizza and Cola to their hearts’ content. The children get to see our animals – the horses, of course, as well as our other barnyard animals.

The year I spent working on a ranch was a long time ago and I discovered that riding a horse is not like riding a bike; I forgot how to do this properly. However, under Alex and Shari’s guidance, I can now mount a horse with some dignity and hardly ever fall off. Alex told me that I’m learning fast. In fact, not long ago I stuck with a horse when he decided to try to put me on the ground. He was bucking, but I was hanging on. It was a great moment! The whole crew was cheering! I felt like Clint Black at a rodeo.

Buying and developing the Skylark Ranch property was a huge decision for us because of the amount of money involved. However, before we finished, the undertaking actually ended up costing us four times more than our initial estimate. But this project has been the best thing that ever happened to us.

We absolutely realize how fortunate we are! I can look out my window and see people who are smiling and happy. Living on this place is like being surrounded by a virtual family. Sometimes, of course, the people I see are members of my actual family. Alex’s mom, Phoebe, lives with us and can look out her window at our horses and our property. Each time I see Alex and Griffin walking hand-in-hand across a sunlit field towards one of our horses, it becomes the most recent greatest moment of my life.

I wake up every day grateful for the life I have! I’m so contented and can’t imagine how any life could be better than the one I’m living now.