Ada Gates Patton, green shirt, works with the California Horse Center to educate about good farrier practices
Ada Gates Patton, president of the California Thoroughbred Foundation, has been named farrier director of the California Horse Center Flag Is Up Farms in Solvang. She will oversee all horseshoeing on the farm and has been involved with the California Horse Center in educational work about good farrier practices.
The first female farrier licensed to shoe Thoroughbred racehorses in the U.S. and Canada, Gates Patton has served as farrier liaison for the 1984 Olympic Games and the FEI World Games in Lexington, Ky., and as the official horseshoe inspector for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.
Flag Is Up is home to Monty Roberts, whose join-up methods of starting horses Ada Gates Patton, green shirt, works with the California are world famous. He and his Horse Center to educate about good farrier practices wife, Pat, have been involved in the California breeding and racing industry for decades. Gates Patton started shoeing for Roberts in 1978 at the CTBA Sales’ Hollywood Park 2-year-old sale and has trained with him on his nonviolent concepts and the language of the horse.
Monty and Pat’s daughter and her husband, Debbie and Tom Loucks, have purchased the farm and will continue its operation under the California Horse Center banner. The center has begun several initiatives, including partnering with the Right Horse Initiative and the ASPCA in the Monty Roberts Mustang & Transition Horse Program for horses needing new homes through adoption. That program has now placed several dozen retired racehorses, mustangs, and other breeds.