Gary ranch a haven

It's easy to see why the lure of the streets is so attractive.

But wedged tightly between the Indiana Toll Road and the South Shore commuter rail tracks is an oasis for neighborhood children. Just northeast of Burr Street and Fifth Avenue sits the T-Ford Performance Horse Ranch, where a truck driver and his postal carrier wife offer horseback riding and rodeo skills classes, charging only whatever local families can pay.

"People say, 'How do you fix the streets?'" said Tim Ford, owner of the ranch and a lifelong West Side resident. "I'm going to start with these kids. This is how we're going to fix it."

'What you should expect from a man'

Ford calls himself a "second-generation cowboy." The kids who ride with him call him Uncle Tim.

His father, James, started the ranch more than 30 years ago. Ford, 38, credits his dad for keeping him on a positive path.

"All the times trouble came down, people would say, 'Where was Tim?' and I was at a ranch, at a rodeo," he said.

After graduating from West Side High School, Ford went on to truck driving school. He drives a semitrailer overnight and when Ford gets off work, he heads straight for the ranch just down the road from his home to care for his 11 horses.

He's currently training five boys and one girl in horsemanship.

"I teach them there's another side other than being in the streets," he said. "It's easy to get in trouble, but it's hard to get out of it. It teaches you responsibility. A horse can't take care of itself. You're responsible for a life."

The kids have to care for the horses and the ranch itself. Ford is strict about making sure school comes first. Grades of C or higher are required, and, if the kids receive a bad grade, they can't come to the ranch for a week.

"If they don't do their chores at home or get in trouble at home, they can't ride here either," he said. "It's a joint effort with their parents."

Ford considers every one of the young people who ride at his ranch his own.

"A lot of the kids call me everyday and not just about things having to do with the horses, about other things at home or at school, too," he said. "I feel like they're mine. A lot of guys leave their families and a lot of guys grow up without a father."

Tiffany Ford, Tim's wife, speaks with pride about her husband's influence in the neighborhood.

"He teaches the kids what you should expect from a man," she said. "The boys and the girls need that. ... When you've got good men in the lives of young people, it makes a major difference."

Tiffany, a postal carrier in Crete, grew up in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, one of the city's most notoriously violent areas. She met her husband at a local club eight years ago.

"The first night we met, we came out here and I've been here ever since," she said.

The couple often skip date nights, dinners out and carryout meals, instead putting the money they would have spent into the youth program. The Fords have saved up to help buy horses for the young people they mentor as well as for a developmentally disabled West Side man who helps out at the ranch.

"This is our life," Ford said. "We only charge whatever a family can pay, but if a family can't pay, it's not going to stop us. We'll take any donations. Right now, we're going out of our own pocket."

Recently, the Fords and parents of their riders took the horses out to Broadway and Fifth Avenue in Gary, asking people to give whatever they could. The change the neighbors scraped together sent the kids to competition.

"I had first, second and third from my ranch in one event," Ford said. "That was the most proud thing for me."

Charles Wilson II, a childhood friend, is an instructor at the ranch. After high school, Wilson went away to the service, but he came back to the West Side.

"When I was growing up, everyone was gang bangin'," Wilson said. "It was all gangs, shooting, negative stuff."

When he returned from the military, Wilson was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 27. He's been in remission for nearly 10 years.

"God gave me a second chance in life, so I know I can give someone else a chance," he said. "That's what this is about."

'I'm not turning back'

Nine years ago, Ford called Keilani Jackson and told her to bring her then 5-year-old son, Landrick, outside of her West Side home.

"Tim came down the alley on one of the horses," Jackson said. "My son's eyes got about this big and he's been into it ever since. He lives, eats, breathes it."

Now 14, Landrick is preparing to enter his freshman year at Thea Bowman Leadership Academy. After the boy's first horse died, the Fords helped his mother buy him Sweet and Sassy, a 2-year-old mare. At first, Landrick didn't like the animal.

"I told him if you take your time, it'll be a beautiful horse," Ford said.

The boy and the horse began to bond and they started winning competitions. After taking top honors in his age group at a rodeo, Landrick turned to Ford with a smile and said, "Hey Tim. She's pretty, isn't she?"

Ford knew then that the boy understood what he'd been trying to teach him about patience and persistence.

"It's a lot of work," Landrick said while brushing his horse's tail. "You have to take a lot of care of them, but you take care of them, they'll take care of you."

The West Side teen knows all too well how he could be spending his time.

"There's a lot of kids not really doing anything interactive or educational, just playing in the streets, getting hurt with gangs and stuff," Landrick said. "With this, you can take the horses places, go to other states and it's fun."

His mother says the ranch is a blessing.

"I cry everytime I see them ride," Jackson said. "I never worry about my son when he's here. This is his stomping ground."

Landrick says definitively that he will go to veterinary school in Texas after he graduates from high school and eventually buy a ranch there or in Oklahoma.

Nearby, West Side kids dressed in plaid shirts, cowboy hats and blue jeans held up by belts secured with huge buckles tend to their horses. Country music blares over the public address system into the ring, competing with the sounds of semis racing by on the Indiana Toll Road, South Shore trains rolling down the tracks and, overhead, jets en route to Chicago's Midway Airport,

Ford said the sounds are good for the horses.

"When we take them on the highway to competitions, nothing bothers them," he said.

Ford cuts the music to take the microphone and directs the kids in practicing for an upcoming competition. Inside the pen, the kids cheer each other on as their teammates race around barrels on sprinting horses, handing off batons as they round corners in a flag race.

Kirsten Goodwin, 17, of Highland, is secretary for the group and has been riding since she was 4.

"I consider myself really lucky to be a part of something like this," the Highland High School senior said from atop her horse during a break. "I've seen some of my friends make wrong decisions because they have idle time. I know a lot of people who don't have other things to turn to. They might not always make good choices, but they aren't given the same opportunities."

Goodwin said Ford, who is friends with her father, is "like an uncle."

"He's always really helpful and he pushes us to do our best," she said. "He wants us to succeed or make a career out of it."

Goodwin wants to go to Purdue University to study meteorology. She plans to be on the equestrian team.

For the Fords, the self-confidence of the kids in their plans for the future makes the sacrifices they are making worthwhile.

"When they do succeed, you can't put a price tag on that," Tiffany said.

Her husband agrees.

"This is a good life for me, and I'm not turning back," Ford said.