Sonoma Stories: Howarth Park’s Pony Lady needs help to keep the rides going

The pony ride concession that’s headed for the barn following its 36th and perhaps final summer at Santa Rosa’s Howarth Park looks to be almost two-dimensionally simple:

Parents wave and snap photos as their little ones giddyup around a fenced loop near the park’s snack bar atop gentle, saddled ponies tended affectionately by adolescent ride hands, most of them girls.

But there’s more to The Pony Express ride than meets the eye.

Linda Aldrich, founder of the $5-per-lap ride and the equine therapy program it supports, will tell you those ponies are healing the children who guide and feed and groom them, and the kids are healing the ponies.

“We’re a prevention program,” Aldrich said, standing alongside the park attraction’s fenced course.

The previously unwanted or neglected ponies Aldrich rescued are no longer in peril. And the 59-year-old Aldrich’s young helpers and trainees, many of them dealing with serious family and emotional issues, are gainfully engaged and not nearly so likely to find trouble.

The park attraction, which since 1982 has introduced generations of kids to the wonders of the equestrian world, is the more public and visible portion of the nonprofit Equine Assisted Skills for Youth mentoring program that resides on Aldrich’s ranch on Sonoma Highway near Oakmont.

The fair-weather pony rides at Howarth help to pay the costs of maintaining the ponies and horses at the ranch and building children’s life skills, confidence and leadership by introducing them to the friendship and care of the animals.

Aldrich said the problem at The Pony Express is that she’s not been able to bring in nearly enough money for her kids-and-horses therapy program to break even.

“We need to take in at least $50,000 a year more than we are,” she said. “We won’t be able to continue without the support of the community.”

Despite her efforts to attract a major sponsor, Aldrich has not found the consistent, substantial financial support that would put the program on an even financial keel.

Aldrich did not intend to operate a therapeutic nonprofit when her love of horses and need for income led her to open The Pony Express in 1982. She was then was a young, single mother of two.

And the pony ride at Howarth Park, operated decades ago by Delores Bible, was one of her favorite places in the world. Aldrich remembers taking her first ride there when she was 8, and being hooked.

“I was up here so much that (Bible) let me work as a volunteer,” she said.

As a girl she eventually got a horse of her own. Years later she’d teach equine classes at Santa Rosa Junior College.

“Horses were always my safe place,” she said.

She needed to make money for herself and her children when, 36 years ago, she took over the Howarth Park pony rides from Bible. “I bought two ponies and a truck and trailer,” she said.

She and the kids she mentors give rides every day except Friday during local schools’ summer break, and on weekends through the spring and the fall. The concession evolved into a therapy program as it took on rescue animals and attracted children, predominantly girls ages 12 to 18, who struggle with the foster care system or other family or personal challenges, and are drawn to the opportunity to bond with and share the responsibility for the care of ponies and horses.

In 2009, Aldrich, who graduated from Santa Rosa High School in 1975 and holds a master’s degree in education, created her nonprofit, Equine Assisted Skills for Youth. She began applying for grants and gifts to support her work with kids.

She has attracted financial support to the program, but said it isn’t sufficient to close the budget gap.

All these years at Howarth Park, Aldrich and the kids and their mounts have been walking in circles. The Pony Lady said she hopes very much to continue.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.