Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Smokey gets a brush-down from 5-year-old Stephanie Payne of Saratoga. The pony turned 39 on April 29, and riding instructor Jane Oehlsen continues to use him as a teaching tool at Chez Scherf Pony Farm on Mount Eden Road.
Pony, Scherf Farm continue to thrive despite age, hillside development
By Oakley Brooks
By all accounts Smokey the Pony shouldn't be alive, much less shouldering youngsters around the riding ring. Over the years, the lightly mottled Shetland faced intestinal infection, a bout with colic, and, last year, testicular cancer. And at 39, he far exceeds the average life span of a Shetland pony.
But, with all of his contemporaries having headed to that expansive pony farm in the sky, Smokey continues to extend a gentle hoof to another generation of up-and-coming riders at the rustic Chez Scherf Pony Farm on Mount Eden Road.
"He's kind of like the energizer bunny," said Ed Scherf, a retired schoolteacher who owns Smokey and the farm.
It was Scherf's wife, Hope, who brought Smokey to their farm, not long after they bought it as an apricot and prune orchard in 1961. Then, as Hope puts it, "the trees came down and the ponies came up." Around Smokey and his sister, Tinker Bell, Hope built a riding business for which no kid was too small. She put 2-year olds on Smokey and later let the older kids ride him at the front of an increasingly larger collection of Scherf ponies in Saratoga's fall festival parade.
A steady stream of children made their way through the Scherf's farm, learning to muck stalls, pick hooves and become comfortable in the saddle on the scaled down Shetlands. Smokey's a little less than 4 feet tall, typical for his breed, which originates from the Sheltland Islands in northeastern Scotland.
"And when they got older we sent them off to Garrods,' " Hope said, pointing up Mount Eden Road towards the stable with mostly full-sized horses.
Hope, too, eventually gave up the riding school, after 18 years at its helm. Now, she watches daughter Jane Oehlsen guide the pony business. And from the porch of the Scherfs' boxy farmhouse, Hope can see the new houses fill in the surrounding hillsides, the old riding trails slowly disappear, and familiar faces--old students--bring their children to learn on Smokey and the dozen other Shetlands the farm offers.
"Their faces change but their eyes don't," Hope said about the new generation of riders, smiling out of the corner of her mouth.
Just as some of his old riders, Smokey is not as spry as he used to be. Oehlsen says last year's cancer stole a lot of his energy, and, over the years, his teeth have eroded to stubs. Oehlsen and her young riders feed him only rabbit pellets now. In the ring, she walks him most of the time, with only the occasional trot thrown in.
But, recently, Smokey's been showing signs of his former self: he reared up and bucked in the ring several weeks ago, sending a young rider tumbling.
Oehlsen says he's been known to lie down for a nap with someone in the saddle. Saratogan Megan Brooks, who grew up riding Smokey, remembers that, if she didn't have a tight rein on him on the trail, he would bolt for any spare blades of grass within range.
"He's got a little crazy streak in him," said Brooks, before adding, "He's really one whom the kids develop a deep love for."
On a recent morning at Chez Scherf, Smokey stood quietly in the shade of his red and white, peaked-roof stall. He and his cousin, Tiger, shared the modest shelter, in the middle of the two rows of housed Shetlands. Chez Scherf is organized, but not glossed; it has the all the markings of a working farm, from the rusting wheelbarrows to the packs of friendly dogs, to the old Pan Am Airlines shipping containers that Ed and Hope once used to house the Shetlands.
But in the shifting landscape of Saratoga, the farm is becoming an anachronism.
Oehlsen says climbing land prices are forcing, or enticing, stables in the area to sell to developers, listing a handful of local stables that have closed down and sold.
Garrod Stable owner Vince Garrod agrees that simple economics are pinching the horse industry.
"People are willing to pay more for housing land than horsing land," said Garrod. "That's going to move the horses away."
The trend has the Scherfs and the Garrods wondering about the future of farming in Saratoga. But both insist they're not going anywhere in the near future.
"We're committed to stay as long as we can," said Garrod. "I think the community likes to see the horses here."
Indeed, Jane Oehlsen's lesson schedule is jam-packed.
"We'll be around," said Hope.
Recently, the Scherf family took a little time out to celebrate the longevity of one of their own. Smokey had a little carrot cake and Brooks returned to comb his mane. On a hearty farm, they lauded a wily old character, who has not quite had enough of Saratoga.
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