The outlaw rider

Frank Hyde was one of the top rodeo riders in the state, but to Marla Bunten he was so much more.

He was Roy Rogers, he was the Lone Ranger ? heck, sometimes he was even Billy the Kid.

To a self-described “beach girl” from Newport Beach, Hyde represented every Western figure she had ever heard of, real or fictional.

Bunten’s parents hired Hyde to give her riding lessons in the spring of 1966. When she first met him, she had no idea what to make of the tall skinny man in the 10-gallon hat.

“He was definitely a character. I had never seen anything like him in my 15 years,” Bunten said Thursday while sipping coffee at her Santa Ana Heights home.

Hyde, born in 1917 in Mountain Grove, Mo., was riding horses by age 4. In his teenage years he found he could make good money buying and selling horses ? legend has it he was hooked at age 13 when he made a $10 profit on a Shetland mare.

In the mid-1940s he made his way west to California, working as a professional rider but also pursuing another sporting craze that had been sweeping the nation ? bowling. He earned a spot on a statewide bowling team in 1947 but left the sport after a few years.

Although most of Hyde’s fame grew out of his riding ability, he earned notoriety in horse circles in the 1950s by taming Susie in Red, an “outlaw” quarter horse responsible for injuring several prominent riders.

Critics laughed at Hyde’s endeavor, but after several months of intensive training, he was able to break the horse and take it to compete at equestrian shows, including the 1958 California state fair, where it ranked as one of the top horses in gymkhana, a sport consisting of competitive games such as barrel racing.

Bunten said she knew nothing of Hyde’s bigger-than-life reputation when her parents signed her up to take riding lessons.

“I think they would have been more hesitant if they knew how hard he pushed people,” she said. “They just wanted me to ride around on a horse and look pretty. They had no idea.”

One of the most challenging techniques Hyde tried to teach his students was the no-touch pole race, in which they would ride through a maze of poles without touching the reins of the horse.

“He would have us point the horse in the direction we wanted him to go, then cross our arms and do our best not to fall off,” Bunten said.

Most students stuck to conventional racing and would showcase their talents every year with a special demonstration at the Orange County Fair. His team, Hyde’s Trybe, was considered a formidable force in racing circles.

“No matter where we went, we were the team to beat,” she said.

Bunten would leave racing behind once she went to college, but she said she kept in touch with Hyde, who is now 89 and living in Central California.