Horse Altitudes : In foothills near Santa Barbara, relaxing at a guest ranch with more than a few luxuries

The patron saints of the Circle Bar B guest ranch, to judge from the plaques on the ranch-house wall, are Eastwood, Cooper and Wayne, but the spirit that hovers over the place is Palance.

The wranglers at this bucolic retreat nestled in the Santa Ynez Mountains are actually very accommodating to the mostly novice clientele who come to stay and ride, but they can’t resist, like Jack Palance’s character, Curly, in “City Slickers,” tossing a few rough-hewn jibes at the greenhorns.

Take our first evening. My boyfriend, Steve, and I arrived after a drive of 118 miles from Santa Monica on a Friday in early May and settled into our airy cabin, complete with king-size bed, wood-burning stove and porch overlooking the woods. We then wandered around the grounds, checking out the other cabins and the guest lodge atop the hill, the Jacuzzi and lovely pool. We decided to look around the stables, where one prematurely grizzled ranch hand was finishing up the last feeding and grooming.

We had signed up for the half-day trail ride the next morning (there also are 1 1/2-hour rides available, as well as a sunset ride), and Steve couldn’t resist the urge to tussle with the hand.

“Tell me, what’s the biggest, meanest horse you’ve got here?” he said. With a poker face, the hand replied, “Well, we’ve got one, used to be named Killer, renamed him Cadillac. . . . Oh, you’re riding tomorrow? What’s your name again? Don’t worry--it’s all been taken care of.”

So Steve thought he was in for it, until a little later that night, he asked the young waitress, only a little apprehensively, “So, what about this horse Cadillac?” She said with a chuckle, “Oh, he’s the oldest, slowest horse we have.” Curly, 1; city slickers, 0.

Well, we needn’t have worried, as we both had wonderful horses for our ride. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

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The Circle Bar B, about 25 miles north of Santa Barbara, was begun in 1939 by Florence Brown as a children’s summer camp. It is still run by the Brown family, now by her son, Jim Brown, and Jim’s children, Pat Brown and Kathy Brown Williams. Over the years the cabins have been updated and refurbished (regular cabins are $186 per night, double occupancy, not including service charges and tax); the lodge rooms ($198 per night) also have wet bars. Two cabins have two bedrooms plus wet bars and wood-burning stoves ($225). Three meals a day are included.

A dinner theater was launched in 1971. The play costs $28 a ticket--a bit steep for such a, well, grass-roots production--but for ranch guests it’s just $11. Dinner is served outside under shady walnut and olive trees. On Friday it was a generous buffet of barbecued chicken, roasted-pepper pasta, salad, vegetables and garlic bread--

After dinner, we theatergoers headed over the ridge to a small outbuilding converted to a 100-seat theater. We saw “Murdermind,” a quasi-murder mystery; the play and the performers were rough around the edges, but all in all the audience--especially the surfer dudes behind us who brought in a supply of Coors Silver Bullets--seemed to enjoy the low-key ambience. (The next play, “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” begins June 6.)

After the play, we trekked back up the hill to our cabin and hit the hay to prepare for the morning’s ride.

On Saturday morning, a big clanging bell rang at 8 a.m., giving us half an hour to get ready before breakfast. Breakfast was hearty and delicious: hot and cold cereals, eggs Benedict, sausages, fruit, yogurt, fresh muffins. Then it was down to the stables to saddle up for the mountain trail ride.

There are 35 horses in the riding pool, plus a Shetland pony available for very small children (kids need to be 7 to go on the trail rides), long feeding and saddling rails, several stalls, two tack rooms and a “psycho pen” for horses who haven’t learned how to be team players.

Steve was assigned a tall chestnut gelding named Country, and I was given a compact, nearly black gelding called Baxter. Our leader was a young, tobacco-chewing wrangler named Scott with a folksy patter and official-looking chaps. Three other ranch guests were going on the half-day ride with us, another couple and a single woman.

It was already warm at 9:15 a.m. as we headed out up to the trails that lead up the mountain. We were instructed to stay in single file--not a difficult thing to do, as the trail would become narrow the higher we went. At first we went through woods near a creek with a waterfall. As we climbed out of the woods, we were afforded sweeping views of the canyon and mountains.

Scott, meanwhile, played his part to the hilt. He explained how we would be mostly walking, but we’d “pick up the pace” from time to time, and everyone would get to canter. He was riding a greenbroke gelding that had been skittish in the corral but seemed to be calm now.

As we neared the top, we could see the ocean as well as the valleys of lemon and avocado orchards. The higher we went, the more relaxed we became; we felt several states away from Los Angeles. We cantered two or three short times, and then, as we were cantering up one long stretch of trail, Scott was abruptly ejected from his horse, and disappeared over a ridge.

No real harm done--turns out he had double-checked the tightness of our saddles’ cinches but hadn’t checked his own. His saddle’s loosening spooked his horse, and over he went. His elbow was bloodied, but it was his pride that was really bruised. The rest of the ride was uneventful.

We paused at the top in a grove of eucalyptus and had a soda-and-iced-tea break. The view from the tops of the ridges was really spectacular and well worth taking the longer ride, although the trip down seemed to take much longer, probably because the sun grew warmer and we swallowed more dust on the way back.

We trotted back to the corral just in time for a hearty lunch on the patio, although what tasted best to all of us was the lemonade on each table. Steve and I chowed down and then hauled our aching muscles back up to our cabin to await that afternoon’s special treat, massages from Kenji’s Touch and Tranquillity. Kenji’s (tel. [805] 564-3563) sent a young woman named Marla directly to our cabin. Her calming touch was perceptive and tailored to our needs; it was well worth $55 for an hour each.

After the massages, we collapsed for a mini-nap for the rest of the afternoon, then roused ourselves to shower off the remnants of the ride and massage oil. By the time we went back to the main house for dinner, we were so relaxed we had a hard time deciding what kind of salad dressing to have.

By Sunday morning we finally felt that the city’s clutches had loosened. We slept in until the wake-up bell and had another great breakfast. Before checking out, we decided to sample the last remaining amenities, the pool and hot tub. Be advised that the outdoor pool probably doesn’t come into its own until late June or so--it’s seriously unheated.

The hot tub, on the other hand, is way too warm to use in the daytime--which made us wish we had just one more night at the ranch, so we could sit in the tub after the sun went down. Also, the cabins don’t have tubs, only showers, so if you want to soak your ride-weary hide, the hot tub is the only place to do it. We made a mental note to come back and do an evening soak on the next visit.

We checked out at 11:30 but found that we were so completely in vacation mode that we dawdled on the way back, driving in to Santa Barbara to check out an arts fair, window shop down State Street and have lunch. Steve claimed not to feel a thing (I’m still not sure I believe that), but my legs were so sore from the five-hour ride that I had to fight to keep from walking bowlegged. And that feeling turned out to be one of the best and longest-lasting souvenirs of the weekend.

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Budget for Two

2 nights lodging at Circle Bar B, including meals: $450.34

2 dinner theater tickets: 22.00

2 half-day trail rides: 100.00

2 hourlong massages: 110.00

Gas: 20.00

FINAL TAB: $702.34

Circle Bar B Guest Ranch, 1800 Refugio Road, Goleta, CA 93117; tel. (805) 968-1113.