A Horseback Ride To A Better Life Valley Woman Starts Colt, Gives 19 At-Risk Kids A Second Chance

Faster and faster until her heart raced with joy, Marla Warneke rode bareback on her horse. Countless times, the 10-year-old girl would win the Kentucky Derby in the fields of her southern Idaho home - on a Shetland pony just a foot taller than herself.

The Otis Orchards resident, now 32, remembers the bright purple dress, sheer from wear, she would put on every time she was ready to ride.

She would dream and giggle and feel peace on the back of that pony. It was the only place she felt safe from the physical and emotional abuse she endured as a child and young adult.

“Horses were all I had to live for.”

By the time she was 20, Warneke realized she wasn’t the only one suffering. She dreamed of finding a way to help kids whose childhoods had been ripped apart by abuse, alcohol and/or violence.

Warneke began developing a curriculum, talking to others throughout the country who had started similar programs, finding the right people to help make her dream a reality.

Now, she and her husband, Michael, joined by several volunteers, are giving 19 Spokane children the chance to share in her joy.

Ten weeks ago, Marla Warneke started Changing Our Lives Together.

COLT takes kids at risk of gravitating to gangs, drugs and violence off the streets and puts them on the backs of horses.

Spokane COPS gave the program $500 in seed money. Private donations of money, supplies and horses have kept the effort going.

“The whole idea is to catch the kids before they cross the line and let them know there are people who care, whom they can count on and who won’t leave them,” she says. “We’re here to stay.”

On Thursdays, the children attend a workshop at the COPS West community policing station on West Boone. Writing and reading assignments are due every session.

So far, the kids, ages 9 to 15, have learned about different breeds of horses, common equine illnesses and diseases and how to train, groom and saddle the animals. Only four kids have dropped out.

Beyond those obvious lessons, the children are beginning to understand the deeper, more meaningful values of hard work, compassion and respect.

Fourteen-year-old Travis left his West Central neighborhood to join COLT.

“My brother is in a gang, and I didn’t want to turn out like him,” says the blond, blue-eyed Glover Elementary School eighth-grader. “This helps bring us up, not in a gang world but in a regular civilization.”

Lectures on responsibility normally would bore the teens. But not when Marla Warneke’s talking. Travis and his new friends Emilee, Danielle and Marlee wouldn’t miss a COLT meeting for anything.

“She teaches us to take care of ourselves. And to get along instead of fight,” Travis says.

Warneke’s brainchild has touched more hearts than just the kids’. Spokane COPS coordinator Cheryl Steele threw her support behind COLT soon after hearing about the program.

“Very rarely does an inner-city kid have the opportunity not just to ride a horse but also to have an ongoing relationship with the animal,” she says.

“It’s kind-spirited people like Marla and her husband … who put their whole lives aside for children they don’t even know.”

Instilling in children a sense of community is essential, Steele says. Kids who don’t feel a tie to where they live often fail to treat their neighbors, their families and themselves with respect, she says.

Programs such as COLT help children focus their unbridled energy on something positive. They encourage kids to communicate without anger and with patience instead. They show kids the difference they can make, in this instance, in the life of a horse.

The vision Warneke has for the kids and COLT is clear. By September, when this session ends, the kids will be ready to ride horses - and face their world with renewed confidence.

Initially, Warneke didn’t have enough horses for all the children. Only two of the four horses at her small ranch are ready for riding.

But a Reardan, Wash., couple, after reading about COLT in a local newspaper, donated five horses.

“I had this fairy-tale thought that everyone in the world would want to help,” Warneke says.

Now she’s seeing that fairy tale come true - except for the endless need for hay. There’s 1 ton left and 10 horses to feed. But Warneke says she isn’t too worried. Most times, when the supply dwindles, someone somewhere hears about the need and donates hay.

A dance two weeks ago at Kelly’s Grand Ole Opry at State Line, Idaho, raised more than $1,500 for COLT. Warneke planned for about 100 people, but more than three times that many showed up.

“People just kept coming and coming,” she says. “It was the most affirming thing.”

Steele went to the dance, and after watching the kids ride a mechanical bull, she’s convinced COLT is the answer to many of their prayers. “Never ever have I seen such light in their eyes. It’s as if someone has handed them the world and said, ‘It’s yours.”’

Last weekend, Warneke adopted a wild mustang under a federal program. She wants to train the horse for Travis.

“He’ll have to learn to pay attention and watch her eyes and learn to anticipate what her next move will be,” she says. “Just as in life, you can’t just be banging down doors when something happens. You need to step back. Travis is going to need to settle down, absorb everything around him and everything about the animal.

“There’s this young man saying, ‘Love me, hold me, let me believe.’ That’s why this horse will be perfect for him.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo