The organization said it received a Notice to Quit after the City Council discussed the property in closed session earlier this month. Rose Bowl Riders President Angela Lowell-Schade said the group does not currently know where it would go if it must leave.
“On September 21, the City sent Rose Bowl Riders (RBR) … [a] Notice of Termination, explaining in a cover letter that it was given pursuant to the Lease in which RBR and the City agreed that if the term of the Lease expired, then RBR’s holdover month-to-month tenancy may be terminated by either party upon 30 days’ written notice,” said Chief City Communications Officer Lisa Derderian. “The Notice of Termination provides a notice period well in excess of the agreed-upon 30-day notice requirement and will allow for the safe and orderly vacation of the Premises, including livestock and personal property.”
The cover letter included a timeline of events relative to the Lease, and referenced the lease term expired on December 31, 2023
The agenda for a special closed session the council held Sept. 8 lists a conference with the city’s real property negotiators over the property at 4750 Oak Grove Drive, the site of the Pasadena Equestrian Center Arena. It names Interim City Manager Matthew Hawkesworth or a designee as the city’s negotiator and the group’s president as the negotiating party, with price and terms of payment under negotiation.
“We were not informed of any decision following that meeting,” Lowell-Schade said in written responses to questions. She said the organization learned that action had apparently been taken only when it received the notice.
The group announced the notice in a press release after approximately two months in which children, parents and supporters spoke at City Council meetings on its behalf.
“For the past two months, our children have walked into City Hall, stood before their elected leaders and asked them to save a place they love,” Lowell-Schade said in a statement. “It is heartbreaking that after hearing directly from these children, we are now facing an order to leave. We are still asking the City Council to sit down with us and find a solution.”
In a Sept. 21 letter to Rose Bowl Riders, Hawkesworth said the city was terminating the organization’s month-to-month tenancy effective Jan. 31. The letter says the lease allows either party to end the tenancy with 30 days’ written notice.
Hawkesworth said the longer notice period would give Rose Bowl Riders time to remove its livestock and personal property.
The letter also outlines the city’s concerns about the operation. Hawkesworth said public benefit riding lessons required under the lease were not provided in 2025 or 2026, insurance requirements were not met at times, and the property had deferred maintenance and needed repairs.
The city also said it had not received or approved a request to assign the lease.
“What is not workable is continuing indefinitely on a month-to-month lease,” Lowell-Schade said. “The Notice to Quit has shown how vulnerable that arrangement leaves our horses, our families, and the children who depend on these programs.”
Rose Bowl Riders, incorporated in 1946, operates riding and horsemanship programs at the park, along with boarding facilities and access to the Arroyo Seco trail system. Activities include affordable lessons, free outreach programs, clinics and volunteer opportunities.
Trainers from Myrtle Hill Farm give lessons at the site in the mornings and evenings, and weekends often include trail rides and community programming, Lowell-Schade said. The club regularly hosts children from programs such as Five Acres and Hillsides. Its charitable arm, the Rose Bowl Riders Charitable Organization, funds free and reduced-fee programs for youth groups, disadvantaged children and adults, and public school students, according to the organization.
The city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department had sought an operator to run and maintain part of the Pasadena Equestrian Center under a 10-year operating agreement with two five-year extension options, according to a request for proposals the department posted. The solicitation required a public benefit program and called for the operator to pay an annual fee set through negotiation, a public benefit calculation or a combination of the two.
The group said it was the only respondent to the city’s request for proposals to operate the Pasadena Equestrian Center. In a statement released on Monday, the group said it expected to discuss a longer-term agreement but has been unable to secure the meetings it has requested with city leaders.
Lowell-Schade said the club met with the city in April to discuss moving Rose Bowl Riders from a private membership club to a nonprofit joint venture model, a change outlined in its proposal. She said the club had already obtained membership approval for its 501(c)(3) transition when the city canceled the solicitation months after submissions had closed, stating that the scope had changed.
“Until that point, we believed we would continue working with the City toward an agreement that addressed its requirements and preserved the programs at the Equestrian Center,” she said.
“A workable solution begins with the City sitting down with us and giving us a fair opportunity to implement the commitments we already outlined in our RFP proposal,” she said.
Those accounts of the proposal process and the Notice to Quit could not be independently confirmed from the materials reviewed.
A petition asking the council to meet with Rose Bowl Riders and publicly consider ways to continue equestrian programming had 984 verified signatures as of Monday morning. Rose Bowl Riders says nearly 1,000 people signed within 48 hours.
The group is encouraging residents to sign the petition and contact the City Council before final decisions are made regarding the property.
“This is not simply about where horses will be kept,” Lowell-Schade said. “This is about whether Pasadena will continue to have a place where a child can walk through the gate, meet a horse and discover something that can shape the rest of their life.”
Among the young riders Rose Bowl Riders says have addressed the council is Caleb Kodama, a June 2026 Pasadena High School graduate who will study bioengineering at UC Riverside. In a speech the group says he delivered to the council, Kodama said he started riding there at age 9 after the club’s Art of the Horse Program brought Title I students from Pasadena Unified School District to the barn.
“During COVID, so many activities came to a stop, and the same thing happened during the Eaton Fire, which affected my family greatly,” Kodama said, adding that at the barn he “found something that I couldn’t find anywhere else.”
The club traces its founding to 1944, when members rode from the Upper Arroyo Seco past Devil’s Gate Dam to the Brookside Restaurant at the Rose Bowl, the route that gave the club its name. In 1952, with help from the city, the clubhouse and main arena were built on just over 3 acres in what was then Oak Grove Park, and the property grew to 12 acres in 1970, according to the group.
The 12 oak-shaded acres now hold a clubhouse, boarding facilities, three arenas, a round pen and a sun pen, with trail access to the Arroyo Seco and the Angeles National Forest. The organization describes itself as the only full-service equestrian center left in Pasadena.
The city’s reason for requiring the organization to leave, and its plans for the site after January, were not provided in the group’s statement.
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