Reagan was dressed to go riding; he had on his jodhpurs, one of the three shirts he always wore, and the best English riding boots, brown Dehner three-buckle field boots from Omaha. These boots were from the old school, and few people wear them anymore.
The President saw us and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Jerry responded. “This is agent John Barletta. He is from the White House detail, and he is going to ride with you today.” A quiet, soft-spoken, intelligent man, Jerry looked like Walter Matthau. All the shift members liked him, and their respect for him was immense. He was highly experienced and really knew his job.
The President nodded and smiled, but you could tell by the look in his eyes that he was skeptical. Oh no, he was thinking, not another one that I am going to have to babysit. I won’t be able to do what I want, because these guys can’t ride.
My boss knew nothing about horseback riding, and he had never seen me ride either. Still, Jerry was anxious to give me a try. Before we went into the tack room, he gave me explicit instructions on how to handle the president-elect and his requests while riding with him. “John, the President may ask you if it’s all right for him to do something while riding. Always tell him that he can do whatever he wants to do and that you will keep up with him.”
“Mr. Parr,” I reminded him, “you’ve never seen me on a horse. You don’t even know if I can ride or not.”
Jerry shot back, “You told me you could!”
When we entered the barn, the President was expecting to gather his tack (saddle, bridle, halter, and cleaning gear). There were usually six horses at the ranch. President Reagan was a very particular rider, and he knew just how he wanted the slipknot for his horse tied. He also wanted his saddle positioned and secured in just a certain way. The horse’s shape determines the exact placement of the saddle, and the front of the saddle needs to fit over his withers, the place where the neck comes into the shoulder of the horse. Some horses do not have good withers, making it extremely difficult to secure a saddle on them. When you tighten the saddle, it needs to be done just right. If it is too tight, the horse will have difficulty breathing, and if it is not tight enough, it will come loose while you are riding. Cinching a saddle properly takes some practice.
The President usually got his own horse ready. For the most part, good riders want to saddle their own horses, but on my first morning there, I wanted everything just right, so I had tacked up his horse before he got to the barn.
I followed him to his horse, and I could tell he was surprised that the horse was ready. I had groomed the horse, picked his feet, put his halter on, lifted his stirrups, and placed the saddle on securely. Of course, I was nervous as he started looking his horse over. Soon I heard him say, “Now John, I want to show you a couple of things. I like to tie my horses this way,” but when he looked at the slipknot, he realized that I knew how to do that. “Oh, I see you’ve done that before.”
Then he talked about the way the saddles are positioned. “Now, John, my saddle—Oh, I see you’ve done that before too.”
When he lifted one of the horse’s hooves to clean it and saw that it had already been done, he just said, “Oh, my, my.” Following a few such observations by the President, I could see that he had a little bit more trust in me, but after all he had seen over the past few weeks, he was still leery.
Ready to go, we mounted our horses and started walking them. The President rode a big, black thoroughbred mare that he had raised himself. Since the Secret Service had not obtained any of its own horses yet, I rode one of the President’s—Gwalianko, a beautiful gray. The weather that morning was bright and seasonable. It is usually seventy-five degrees and sunny in Santa Barbara in November, but the weather at the ranch can be more variable. On that morning, it was close to perfect. As we rode toward the tiny adobe ranch house, painted white with a red Spanish-tiled roof, it looked as if it was just a small part of a painting under the vast blue sky. The land was flat where the house was built, but from that spot, there was a panoramic view of the mountain range and the groves of imposing oak trees.
As we passed the house and entered the pasture, the President asked, “Can we pick up the pace and trot?”
“Mr. President,” I said, “you can do anything you want.”
We started trotting; it was a test. If I could not have kept up, he probably would have stopped, as he had done in the past with the other agents, but I stayed right with him, and soon we were in the field. The grass was swaying, and the field looked like a green ocean. We continued trotting, and before I knew it, we were talking. He started calling me John right away. Although mindful of my purpose in riding with the President, I was at ease with him, and there were moments when I almost forgot that this was our first ride together.
If you’re not a good rider, your butt slaps the saddle as soon as you start trotting. The President kept watching me closely, and he noticed that I wasn’t slapping the saddle. He looked at me and smiled.
When we reached a fence, we needed to open the gate. Along the path we were riding on, the gates had been left closed but unlocked. Once the ride was over, however, they were again secured by a combination lock. It is dangerous to lean over the horse and undo the latch. Not wanting me to have to open it, the President leaned right over his horse and said, “John, I’ll get it.”
“No, Mr. President, I will get that for you.” Instead of leaning over the horse, I sidestepped my horse up to the gate and undid the latch. Again he looked at me, but this time he gave me one of those big Irish smiles that goes right through you.
After I had opened the gate, and we had ridden through it, he asked me, “John, do you want me to close the gate?”
“No, Mr. President,” I said. “There is a vehicle full of agents behind us. We need to leave it open. They will close the gate.”
Most of the ground at the ranch is hard and rocky. Once you get beyond the first gate, there is a nice, soft stretch across the meadow that goes down for about a mile before you get to the well. Here, the President wanted to run. “John, do you mind if we do a collected canter?” he asked, the reins firmly in his hands.
“Mr. President,” I answered, “you can do anything you want.”
When you do a collected canter, the horse is moving out, but not in a full run. When you canter—a moderate gallop—each horse usually tries to compete with the other. That’s much harder than it looks. If you don’t know what you’re doing, the horse will run away with you. We started cantering, and the horses were running side by side. Anybody who rides knows how difficult that is to do. It’s extremely unusual for the horses to remain next to each other. Our horses, though, matched strides, equal with each other.
We kept the horses at the same stride for about fifteen minutes until we got to the well. The President raised his hand and said, “Whoa!” just like someone in the cavalry would say it.
From the well, he liked to turn off into the brush, which was about two miles from where we started. There was a new well constructed by the U.S. Navy Seabees. The older well on the President’s property was called the beehive, and it provided the water for the ranch.
After Reagan was elected president, big changes were needed to accommodate the additional people working there. No longer would just the Reagans and maybe a few friends and family be at the ranch. Instead, there could be 175 people at any one time. There were agents, special officers, Secret Service Uniformed Division dog teams, countersniper teams, and so on. To help secure the place, twenty-nine Secret Service vehicles were kept on the property. They had to build a helicopter pad for Marine One and a hangar to store it in. In addition, a plane was on-site that nobody knew about—nor would they, unless it was needed. It is hard to imagine that all of this was going on when you see the pictures of the President out for his private, peaceful rides on the trails. The agents did all they could to shelter the First Couple from intrusions, so that they could enjoy their time