Once Upon An Island-Shellabi

If one rides or hikes from Little Harbor on the southwest side of Catalina Island and you climb over 1,000 feet up Sheep Chute Road, you'll come to a sign for El Rancho Escondido. Hang a right and you'll be on the Escondido Cutoff and shortly, the impressive sight of the ranch buildings—a half mile down the side of the Canyon— emerges. This view is nothing short of spectacular and a perspective that few ever have a chance to see.

From this vantage point the stables are clearly seen.  Also, clearly visible is the arena clinging to the side of the canyon! It’s safe to say that thousands of guests to El Rancho Escondido have been ringside at this arena and treated to a demonstration of Arabian horses, originally brought to the ranch by Philip and Helen Wrigley in the 1930’s. What many people don’t know is that while this arena was the first constructed at El Rancho Escondido, it wasn’t the only one! 

Philip Wrigley was one of the first people to recognize that the Arabian was a viable choice for a working western horse. Somewhere between 1936 and 1941, he decided to create a second arena on the ranch. His granddaughter, Blanny, remembers her mother sharing the story of when she and her sister Deedie were in their teens and their father decided to create a roping arena—called the rodeo arena— south of the road running past the ranch headquarters. He had decided on a flat quarter-acre of land to use for the arena, but it needed to be covered by sand to a depth of several inches. Deedie and Blanny were assigned, along with several members of the ranch crew, to take trucks to the beach at Little Harbor, shovel the truck beds full of sand and bring it back for spreading at the arena.

There are only a handful of photographs showing the action in that arena, but the ones that do exist offer tantalizing evidence of where it was located. Glimpsed in the background of this photo of the little grey gelding Shellabi, probably taken in 1950, we can see enough of the mountainous skyline to know that the location was the new roping arena.

Shellabi—a son of Bakir and out of the Kaaba daughter Tis’Ah— was born in 1946, and in 1950, was chosen to compete in the most unlikely of competitions for an Arabian—calf roping! Everyone involved in the endeavor knew that it flew in the face of logic… and in more respects than one.

 In an article published in Western Horseman magazine in 1951, Millard Johnson clearly laid out the challenges facing the team responsible for the success or failure of this experiment; Shellabi was only a four-year-old who weighed 840 pounds and was packing 240 pounds of cowboy and tack. Said cowboy, a 21-year-old from Fresno named Sam Edmonson, had limited experience in calf roping and Shellabi had only six months of rope work. Despite the odds, Shellabi, Sam Edmonson, and trainer Joe Dawkins were able to place in the money in three of the seven rodeos they entered that summer.

On July 9. 1950 the Idaho State Journal had a small write up authored by The Armchair Wrangler which laid out the plan which had Shellabi, Sam Edmonson and Joe Dawkins on the rodeo circuit between Idaho and Nevada.

After the summer tour in 1950, there are no accounts of the Wrigley bred Arabians continuing to compete in a rodeo setting. By October of 1951, young Joe Dawkins had stepped into the role of manager and head trainer at El Rancho Escondido, and between Dawkins and Wrigley, they determined that there were better ways to highlight the heart, trainability, and athleticism inherent in the Arabian horse. While a popular rodeo event, calf roping was only a small part of the life of an actual working ranch horse. On the horizon was the era where the courage and versatility of the Arabians bred on Catalina Island would be showcased as they became a force to be reckoned with in other working western events. 

Their tremendous performance in the show arena is the reason El Rancho Escondido has a Saddle and Trophy room! Beginning with the grey mare Tisahmar in 1953, Dawkins developed generations of Santa Catalina Island Arabians as cutting horses and stock horses, eventually producing the National winners Sadimez, Alsaghez++ and Adibiyez++ and one of Deedie Wrigley’s favorite horses— Tasamar!