OUTWEST GUIDES BRINGS HORSES TO KEVIN COSTNER’S WEDDING
When a major Hollywood celebrity owns a ranch in Aspen, meets the lady of his dreams, and wants to impress her with a world-class wedding, there are thousands of different possibilities of how to get the job done—but Kevin Costner knew exactly what to do.
When Kevin Costner, star of “Open Range”, “Bull Durham,” “Tincup”, “Dances with Wolves” and other major motion pictures, started making plans to wed his lovely fiancée, Christine Baumgartner, he already had the perfect place. Mr. Costner owns 160 acres five miles east of Aspen along Highway 82, on the way up to Independence Pass. There are two gorgeous houses, trout ponds, and a set of trails alongside the Roaring Fork River.
Mr. Costner hired the best names in catering, party rentals, music, security, limousine service—and of course, horses. OutWest Guides, a premiere outfitting service based in Marble, Colorado, was called to put together a team-penning competition, including cattle, instructors, horses, saddles, and cattle pens for Costner’s 350 wedding guests to have an opportunity for a real cowboy experience.
The wedding, which took place September 25, 2004, was actually a four-day affair. The horse activities were scheduled for Thursday and Friday prior to the Saturday wedding.
“It’s not easy to find nine horses that not only anybody can ride, but that can chase after a cow as well,” says Gary Hubbell, owner of OutWest Guides. “Either a horse is too quick and responsive and won’t respond to the average beginning rider, or too slow and not responsive enough to work cattle. But we had the horses and away we went.”
Cattle were quickly provided by Michele Pfeifer (the horse breeder, not the movie actress) of Sshellbird in Silt, Colorado, and Marvin Kapushin of Whitewater, Colorado, a horse trainer and AQHA judge, put together the penning contest.
Mindy Bell of Hotchkiss, Colorado, and Jack Toney of South Fork, Colorado, both good friends of Gary and Doris Hubbell and extremely competent team ropers and competitors, helped with getting people started. Doris Hubbell, co-owner of OutWest Guides, herself an excellent horsewoman, helped get beginning riders comfortable with their horses. (Coincidentally, the Costners’ wedding date was the Hubbells’ 11th wedding anniversary).
Mr. Costner, who has more than a little horse experience himself, wanted to keep the activities confined to the arena on his property, out of concern for his guests’ safety. But people really wanted to trail ride on the Costners’ lovely trails along the Roaring Fork River. “It was a five-ring circus,” says Gary Hubbell. “There were a million things going on, with catering trucks, roadies building music stages, limos delivering guests, huge party tents going up, ATV’s, and guests everywhere. But finally Kevin saw how gentle our horses were, and he gave us free rein to take people all over the property.”
Ultimately well over 100 guests took Mr. Costner up on his invitation to ride, including his daughters and his father. “At one time I looked up and there were 40 people waiting to ride,” says Gary Hubbell. “And we put them all on a horse. They were all patient and they had a ball. Heck, if I would have known we were going to switch over to trail rides, I would have brought another ten horses and a couple more wranglers.”
As it was, everything worked out wonderfully, except that Kevin and Christine were too busy themselves to ride.
So how was it working with Kevin Costner? “It was great,” Gary Hubbell says. “Kevin is really a nice, down-to-earth guy who was concerned about us. He wanted to make sure we had shelter from the sun and that we had a good place to work. His wife, Christine, is a lovely lady, and we really enjoyed working with her.”
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