Protecting a legacy
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com
Diamonta gallops across the large paddock; the 14-year-old mare's hoofs kick up sand as she sprints from one end of the ring to the other.

DANIEL WOLOWICZ Acorn Newspapers

Her pure white coat shimmers in the noonday sun, a startling contrast to the black, brown and spotted horses also kept at the Starbucks Ojai Valley Ranch stables in Ojai.

Diamonta is rare indeed. A Camarillo white horse, she is part of a lineage of horses begun nearly 90 years ago by Adolfo Camarillo that have become the city's symbol and part of Ventura County's history.

Since 1921, when Adolfo Camarillo purchased Sultan, his first white stallion, the Camarillo white horses have become fixtures in parade routes throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

With their silver saddles and riders dressed in the ornate suits worn by California's early vaqueros, the white horses were invited to the opening day parade for the Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 and stood alongside Highway 101 when it was extended through Camarillo in the late 1930s.

The easily recognized horses have since been featured nine times in Pasadena's famed Rose Parade.

Rare for their white coats and skin, the Camarillo white horses faced possible extinction in 1987 when they were sold following the death of Camarillo's youngest daughter, Carmen Camarillo.

The auction saw the sale of 11 white horses and the closure of the once busy stables at Camarillo's ranch house.

Steve Petit, Camarillo's greatgrandson, and Paquita Parker, Camarillo's granddaughter, were the only two family members able to buy horses at the time.

Petit bought a filly and Parker purchased Pancho, a 7-year-old stallion that he gave to Meliton Ortiz.

Ortiz, now in his 80s, grew up at the Adolfo Camarillo Ranch House and helped raise and train the white horses. Known as the "godfather" of the horses, Ortiz is credited with saving them from a barn fire in 1937.

Unwilling to allow the white horses to scatter across Southern California and beyond, a group of dedicated horse lovers- including Harold Parker and his sister Ynez Parker LaDow, Camarillo's greatgrandchildren- joined in an effort to preserve the horses' bloodlines.

Soon after the horses were auctioned, Priscilla Stuart-Galgas, an Oak View resident, mounted a campaign in 1988 to bring together the owners of the remaining white horses.

Connected by their mutual love for the white horses, StuartGalgas and a group of owners formed the Camarillo White Horses Association with the goal of breeding the remaining horses to keep the breed alive and to maintain an accurate registry.

"The horses would have died out, or almost, if we didn't all work as a unit," Stuart-Galgas said.

Over the next 16 years, the breeding program produced a limited number of white foals.

Association member Tanya Langkopf said the size of the foals was gradually diminishing, and a growing number of horses were afflicted by genetic defects and skin cancer, common to light-skinned horses.

"I would parade with three different generations and it would be big, small, smaller," Langkopf said of the white horses' declining size.

Two years ago, the association began taking steps to not only increase the number of white foals born each year but to actively work to breed out many of the genetic disorders afflicting the Camarillo white horses.

Parker and Parker LaDow took an active role in the breeding program and worked to strengthen the horses' genetic pool.

In 2005, Parker made contact with researchers at the University of Kentucky who were involved with an international study of the genetic makeup of white horses scattered throughout the world. Published in November, the study included work from scientists in Switzerland and Spain and featured the Camarillo white horses.

Parker said the two-year study showed the Camarillo white horses possess a specific gene which prevents underlying skin colors from being expressed.

"It appears as though we now know genetically why Camarillo horses are white," Parker said.

That information will not only help the group more successfully breed white horses, but it can also be used to solidify the breed's bloodlines and identify offspring related to the first white horse owned by Camarillo.

As for the size of the horses, Parker LaDow said the birth of El Patron, a large stallion, last year has given the breeding program a huge leap forward.

"He's a big promise for the future," Parker LaDow said. "He made the biggest difference in our future because of his size and bone structure."

There are 12 white horses registered with the association, said association member and Camarillo resident Audra Seldeen, and another five colts are expected this spring. Although it's not yet known whether the foals will be white, the numbers are encouraging for those who love the animals.

"It's exactly what we worked for," Stuart-Galgas said. "That's the reason we all got together."

The association hopes to one day have white horses return to the Camarillo ranch house to be shared with the city's younger generation.

"It would be great if the young people, the school kids, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and less fortunate could come to the ranch and see these horses that are on police cars and street signs," Stuart-Galgas said. "They belonged to Adolfo, and he loved them."