El Camino Ranch is owned and operated by LaVesta Locklin, and is in the orange groves in eastern Redlands, California with a gorgeous view of the San Gorgonio Mountains to the north and east. South of us is the Mojave Desert,with Palm Springs 40" away.Southwest of us l hour away is the Pacific Ocean.
 Bill Locklin, congratulating long time employee, Juan Irigoyen, on earning his US Citizenship. |
LaVesta's late husband, Bill Locklin, is shown in this photo congratulating one of our three employees at the ranch who have become U.S. citizens while employed by us. |
 Numaa++ age 30 with LaVesta |
LaVesta LOCKLIN is a retired Public Health Nurse, who spent many years working at Inland Regional Center, a state mandated program for Developmentally Disabled individuals, got her Masters degree in Public Health at Loma Linda University, then she retired to find herself becoming interested in Arabian horses. She and husband, Bill, went to an Arabian Auction in Santa Ynez, Calif., which was conducted by Mike Nichols, who was making movies, and he made a splashing presentation of the horses. That was 1983, and Bill & LaVesta bought their first Arabian, GG Magnolia, a Spanish Arabian mare, who was in foal for the following year. Later that year Bill purchased 3 other Arabian mares, also in foal, from Jay and Dorothy Stream at Greengate Farm. Well, the next year El Camino Ranch had 4 beautiful fillies, so now we had 8 mares. We purchased Amoroso de Espana, a Spanish stallion, and LaVesta went to University of California at Davis that year and earned her Certificate in Advanced Equine Reproduction. While in Loma Linda, she had studied Human Genetics, and this proved useful to her in Equine Genetics, also. She was no longer retired. She was the Breeding Manager for several years until the ranch became larger. |
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El Camino purchased the 11 year old Spanish stallion, *Numaa++, and started a lesson program. We then added another trainer, and later also a performance trainer. LaVesta was now supervising the entire ranch, and we hired another Breeding Manager. LaVesta is pictured with *Numaa++ in 2005, when he was 29 years old. He turned 30 in January, a short time prior to his death. LaVesta spent 10 years breeding National Show Horses, and during those years was President of the California National Show Horse Association, and was on the national NSHA Board of Directors. The NSHA Board presented LaVesta with a plaque for the years of 1994 to 2003 when she resigned and moved back to the Arabian industry. Arabians are the horses that El Camino has always sold to our riding students, and show students, and as our clientele grew, we renamed our Lesson Department to El Camino Ranch Riding Academy. Thus we had need for more Arabians to sell to our students. This was our focus as we moved back to Arabian breeding, showing, and training. | |
 Vandi with Lil Miss Muffett. |
VANDI REEVES, LaVesta's granddaughter, grew up here at El Camino Ranch since age 3 years. She always had her own pony or horse. And as she got older, it was Vandi’s “horses”. She showed a number of the ranch owned horses, too. Vandi showed in Walk/Trot, 13 and Under, then in 14 to 17, in Pleasure and Equitation, in Western, Hunter, English, Reining, Side Saddle, Show Hack, and Native Costume. She and her horses won many local and regional Championships, and at 5 Arabian Youth Nationals, they won 9 Reserve Championships, and 20 Top Ten awards. She showed and won with Baseyna, KA Cherry, Jon, Reign Dancer, EC Summer Splash, EC Sylouette, EC Symphony, EC Native American, EC Dreamarosa, EC Macintosh, EC Palomar, EC Mazarati, EC Mercedes, Lost in Yonkers, and Lil Miss Muffett. During the few years that LaVesta bred NSH’s, Vandi rode 2 Saddlebred mares, A Whole New World and It’s Phi Day. One year when she was 10 years old she showed the Welsh pony, Lloydor Bryt Lyt to a National Championship in English Pleasure. Now that Vandi is an adult, she loves working in the Training Barn, and in giving riding lessons. She skipped Amateur showing, as she wanted to be able to work with horses while she was going to college, and needed some income. A side job of Vandi’s when Grandma needs videos, is to shoot the video, edit it, and burn the DVD’s to be sent out from the ranch. However, she just can’t find anything she’d rather do than ride an Arabian. |
 Vandi, when she was 4, her first show. | |
 One of LaVesta's original Spanish Arabian mares, who died at El Camino in 2005 at age 32.  Lucy, The Ranch Manager | |
