REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:Fair cattle drive brings many people together

Editor’s note: Alicia Robinson participated in Friday’s cattle drive to the Orange County Fairgrounds.

FAIRVIEW PARK, FROM HORSEBACK — Boy, am I going to be sore tomorrow.

Or more likely, by the time you’re reading this, today.

And it was hot and dusty, and I sunburned my scalp. But boy, was all that worth it.

The actual cattle drive Friday, from Fairview Park to the Orange County Fairgrounds, was only part of the experience. Maybe the best part, because we riders got to wave to the cheering crowds along the route, and everyone was happy to see us.

But I also learned something I might not have believed before seeing it: It’s possible to get 120 people and horses — most of whom don’t know each other — to do the same thing at the same time, to cooperate, to reach a common goal, and not to trample anyone or make too big of a mess.

The ordeal for my posterior began Thursday, when the riders met for a practice session driving cattle around Fairview Park.

I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a kid, let’s just say more than 15 years ago, but it came back pretty quickly.

The experienced cowhands had us get a herd of 300 cattle to circle the park a couple of times, which meant we had to line our animals up to create a moving wall of horse that contained the cattle.

We were divided into teams, and that’s how I met Fran, Jim and Larry.

At first I thought of Larry Day as the singing cowboy — he was crooning “They Call the Wind Mariah” Thursday, and Friday morning he sang whatever the inexplicable band at the “cow camp” was playing.

But Fran, who knows Larry from Orange Park Acres, where they both live, told me even though he’s not a pastor for a church, he sometimes gives informal services for their horse-riding friends.

Larry — who was in pain during the entire cattle drive because of a broken foot — called himself the “cowboy preacher,” and explained he uses the analogy of horse training, as in God is the trainer and we’re the horses.

Jim Oliver, Larry’s friend and fellow rider of many years, brought up one of the other things I learned about: cattle sorting.

The fact that it’s “sorting” makes it sound like laundry or junk mail.

But it’s actually a timed competition in which riders must separate numbered cattle from a herd in a particular order.

Jim wears the enormous belt buckle of a sorting champ.

These were definitely “horse people” — Fran Klovstad, who brought the family and their horses to ride in the cattle drive, said at one time they kept 10 horses on their property.

Before she got married, she had three horses — and two were pregnant.

“When I met my husband, I told him it’s a package deal,” she said, and that was OK with him.

Being experienced riders, my teammates made sure I didn’t fall off my horse or get charged by angry cattle. And everything went as smoothly as organized chaos can.

A few emergencies did come up. I learned you can reattach a loose horse shoe with duct tape, but also that it doesn’t hold for three entire miles.

And cattle dogs? They’re amazing. They ran around the steers, guiding them and keeping them all in a group. They went in and out between the horses and never got stepped on.

There were about nine of them, although there was one casualty — a dog ran off and was lost Thursday morning during a mini-cattle drive in Huntington Beach.

At about 10 a.m. Friday, we were finally lined up on Placentia Avenue ready to go, when I realized the cattle would emerge from an opening in the fence — and be headed straight at me.

They were smaller than I had expected, but several people had mentioned how the cattle ran amok in 1994, when a cattle drive last happened in Costa Mesa.

I pictured the headline: Permanently bow-legged reporter gored by horn of puny steer. I could phone the story in from the hospital.

But when they did come trotting up over a small hill and out of the fence, everything went without a hitch. A few of them gave me the eye, which prompted me to ride up closer behind Jim, whose horse I was following.

Once we got going, the ride was awesome. The entire route was lined with spectators. The workers building Estancia High School’s new stadium halted their work in wonderment to see us pass. A woman in stopped traffic on Harbor Boulevard took a picture out her window and said, “Nobody’s going to believe you guys are right next to my car.”

People were waving and cheering. A wide swath of the community, older folks, families with children, everyone was excited about the cattle and about us, for bringing them.

If the folks who plan the fair wanted proof 300 cattle can bring a community together, I have it. I made new friends, for one thing, and bunches of people had a good time.

Two of the people standing along the route had taken the trouble to make poster board signs with markers, glitter and such. One read, “We (heart) OC Fair,” and the other said, “Hooray, hooray, cattle drive.”

To see a video of the cattle drive, click here.

To see staff galleries of the cattle drive, click here.

CATTLE STATISTICS

Costa Mesa’s first cattle drive in 13 years shut down the streets around the fairgrounds Friday and drew scores of spectators. Here’s the lowdown on what it took to put the event together.

Cattle: 300 Corriente steers

Horses and riders: 120

Cattle dogs: Nine

Distance: 3.1 miles

Police for street closures: 14 officers, 13 civilian employees, three volunteers, eight Youth Explorers

Mess: About 12 cubic yards of cow and horse manure.

Funds raised by the event benefiting the Centennial Farm Foundation and ranch after-school program: $275,000

Information from the Orange County Fair, Costa Mesa Police Department and LWI, the company that cleaned up the mess.