The Story of Cory Walkey, Founder of Mill Creek Ranch

It was a tempestuous night, the wind was blowing hard and the rain was falling fast. It was the perfect setting for storytelling. I was having dinner with my friend Joe McKinley, a trainer at Mill Creek Equestrian Center in Topanga. We were entertaining each other by telling tales of our pasts, whiling away the time until the storm passed. ‘You know, Cory has led an interesting life,’ Joe said. ‘She used to be friends with Ronald Reagan and ride with him on his ranch in Malibu. He even gave her one of his horses as a gift.’ 

Cory Walkey is the owner of Mill Creek and a lifelong resident of Pacific Palisades. Intimidating is a gentle word to describe this woman who is all business when it comes to her horses. Her presence at Mill Creek is omniscient; all seeing and all knowing. She is a very private and enigmatic figure to many of us riders, so it was a delightful surprise when she enthusiastically agreed to let me interview her for the Palisadian-Post.

I met with Cory at her one-story ranch house in Rivas Canyon, where she lives with her two Rottweilers, six chickens and Mr. Duck, who has the run of the house. As we talked, her mystique quickly melted away, and before me sat one of the most gracious and personable women I have ever met. One of the most intelligent, too. 

Born in 1945, Cory was raised in the Palisades, initially in a house on Las Casas Avenue. At age five, while on a trail ride with a neighbor, Cory came upon Rivas Canyon, a remote setting on the north side of Sunset, between Brooktree Road and the entrance to Will Rogers State Historic Park. It was secluded by sycamore trees and holly-leaved cherry, close to civilization, yet still very wild. 

Cory brought her mother to this enchanted place and she immediately fell in love with it. ‘At the time, there were two houses down by Sunset’one where Myrna Loy lived,’ Cory says. ‘Another house, further up the canyon, belonged to Lee Tracy, the 1930s movie actor.’ At the time, Cory’s father worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company, but it was the inspiration of her mother, who ran the foreign students’ program at UCLA, to buy 12 to 14 acres in Rivas. 

She first built the Walkey home, then throughout the years built spec houses and sold off parcels of land. Cory spent most of her childhood in a riding ring across the street from her house. ‘I was always getting into trouble with my horses,’ she recalls. One afternoon, seven of her horses escaped from the corral and made their way up Sunset towards the Palisades village. ‘I flagged down a motorist and begged him for a ride. He took me to the old Hot Dog Show, where I found a policeman, but he wouldn’t help me. He thought I was crazy. I found the horses all the way down at the bluffs just standing there, looking at the ocean.’

Cory always knew what she wanted to do in life. ‘I never had to think about it,’ she says. At age 11, her friend wanted to keep her horse at the stable at Cory’s house. Her mother agreed, but only if Cory set it up as a business. ‘She bought me a ledger book and told me to keep track of all the costs. Soon after, I had three, then four horses and was running a pretty good business.’ 

At age 16, Cory was giving riding lessons after school and on weekends. ‘From there, it just grew and grew.’ And so did the status of her clientele: Anthony Quinn, Glenn Ford’s wife, Sidney Portier and Katherine Ross, to name a few. ‘There was a young man about 14 named Reginald Sully III who thought the world set with Katherine Ross,’ Cory remembers. ‘He would come to the house and hang out whenever she came to ride. 

One day I was on the phone and someone was insistently knocking at the door. I figured it was Reggie and yelled out for him to go play in the barn. I finally answered the door, and standing there was Gregory Peck. He was inquiring about riding lessons for his daughter. I can’t believe I told Gregory Peck to go out and play in the barn.’ 

Cory suffered from dyslexia and had a difficult time at Palisades High because her teachers never recognized her disability. One day she was called into the principal’s office and she feared trouble. To her surprise, the principal pulled out a set of blueprints. ‘He was building a stable and wanted my advice,’ Cory says. He made an arrangement for Cory to get involved in a work/study program. ‘I came to school for four hours in the morning and my work was to come home and ride and take care of my horses. I even got to write out my own report card.’ 

While at a horse show, Cory’s mother befriended Sir John Galvin, one of the world’s richest men, who subsidized the U.S. Olympic eventing team. He invited Cory to stay at his ranch in Solvang” the most incredible equestrian center anyone’s ever seen,’ Cory says. ‘It was the opportunity of a lifetime.’ 

After high school, while most of her peers went to college, Cory decided to travel to Galvin’s estate in Ireland, where she trained extensively and received her teaching credentials in equestrian sports. Ten months later, when it was time for her to return home, Cory didn’t want to leave. She had grown attached to one of Galvin’s horses and approached Galvin, asking if there was any way she could buy his horse. ‘He said to me, ‘You know I don’t sell my horses, Cory, but you really love this one, don’t you? You can take him home with you.’ It was unbelievable. I get teary when I think about it.’

In the 1960s, Cory started the Will Rogers Riding Club. When the state put out a bid for the whole concession, Cory fought to keep her club. She proposed a comprehensive equestrian package, wanting to make it more accessible to the public. ‘The polo guys had George Hearst, son of William Randolph on their team, so I didn’t stand much of a chance. The whole thing went to the Will Rogers Polo Club,’ Cory says. ‘Right or wrong, that’s how it went.’

In 1971, she found the future site of Mill Creek, a former walnut and egg farm. ‘There was nothing there but junk,’ Cory says, ‘but I thought, ‘Yep, that’s it.” Throughout the years, she has turned the 30-acre property off Old Topanga Road into a world-class training facility for dressage and event riders.

 Joe McKinley grew up in Northern California. As a young boy just starting out in the sport, he remembers going to shows throughout California and regarding the riders at Mill Creek as the ones to beat. Mill Creek is no longer his competitor, but instead his family, largely because of Cory. ‘For all the roughness about her,’ McKinley says, ‘she’s a very sweet person at heart. There’s no place like Mill Creek. It’s a tremendous undertaking for just one woman.’ 

Cory never married nor had a family of her own. ‘The kids at Mill Creek are my family,’ she says. ‘They’re the ones who have kept the place going all these years. What started as a passion for horses has evolved into just enjoying spending time with the kids. I love that stage from when they go from being passengers to when they’re able to ride. Everything at that point for them is such a thrill.’ 

Sitting in her living room with one of the Rottweilers at her feet, Cory is reflective. ‘I’ve lived in the same town in the same house nearly all of my life and had the same business for 37 years,’ she says. ‘I live in this beautiful canyon, and on my way to work I see dolphins bouncing around in the ocean. It’s idyllic. Sometimes I think I should do something else, but then I think–what, where? It doesn’t get any better than this.’