loading . . . In April 2023, East Oakland residents were surprised to see a small pony trotting on a city street, riderless, unescorted. The animal, with a chestnut brown coat and long-flowing mane, wandered near Hegenberger Road. Locals quickly made calls about the pony to the city’s animal services agency.
And someone else’s phone also started blowing up: Ken Houston.
Houston, who at the time led the Beautification Council, a nonprofit that cleans up illegal dumping, put up a lighthearted post on social media, saying that the pony, named Hotshot, belonged to him.
“HotShot! Snuck out the yard when my back was turned! Bad Pony! Lololo,” he wrote.
Houston included a photo of Hotshot standing in the middle of a street.
The horse was eventually led back to its yard — a private lot near the Denny’s restaurant on Hegenberger.
It wasn’t the first time — and wouldn’t be the last — that complaints surfaced about Hotshot. Over the next few years, animal services officers would be called on to check on the horse and demand that Houston provide it with veterinary care and other services.
Houston, in an interview, denied mistreating the animal, saying he’d cared for it well. He came to be the owner of the pony, grazing it in backyards and abandoned lots in East Oakland, on something of a whim.
Houston, who today represents District 7 on the City Council, is a well-known animal lover. In 2015, he made the news after “Chip,” a chicken he was planning to donate to a school, escaped from the back of his truck and wandered around on the Bay Bridge before being rescued.
Several years ago, he wanted a big attraction for a community event he was hosting for local students. Houston had goats, a pig, pigeons, some baby chickens, a turtle, and a rabbit. But he wanted a pony — an animal that many kids in East Oakland didn’t have access to, Houston said.
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According to Houston, a friend in Southern California had ponies, but it cost $1,200 to rent one of them for four hours. Then he heard from a friend from Tracy who offered to sell Houston a pony for $600.
Houston immediately agreed.
“The event went down, kids were happy, feeding him apples,” Houston said. But when the party ended, reality dawned on Houston that he was now stuck with a small horse to care for.
“I’m like, oh my god, what am I going to do with this pony? I don’t have no place to put him,” Houston told The Oaklandside.
Houston made Hotshot part of his life, and he continued to bring the horse to community events. In a video posted to social media three years ago, Houston can be seen showing the pony to children in a park shortly before racing him around on a lead.
## An abandoned city street overgrown with weeds becomes a mini urban pasture
The city owned lot where the pony hotshot lived as seen from 91st Avenue and E Street. Credit: Azucena Rasilla/The Oaklandside
At first, Houston said he took the pony, which he named Hotshot, to live in his yard in deep East Oakland. After someone stole two goats he owned, Houston moved Hotshot to a narrow strip of land between 90th and 91st avenues.
The land, legally considered a public right-of-way, was once a short passageway connecting the two avenues. But it was a magnet for illegal dumping. Houston said that former Councilmember Larry Reid let him use the lot to store his cleaning and painting supplies, provided he kept it free of trash. Houston said he’s been keeping up his side of the arrangement for roughly 20 years. The goats, and then Hotshot, helped keep the grass down, Houston said.
Reid did not respond to an interview request.
The Oaklandside recently visited the city-owned lot where Hotshot lived. A sign still posted to the fence greets visitors.
“Hello neighbors! My name is HOTSHOT. I am a HACKNEY PONY”
According to the sign, Hotshot “works for” the Beautification Council.
Houston said he officially stepped away from his role at the nonprofit after he was elected in 2024.
“I’m here in your neighborhood for a short time to graze the grounds by eating the grass and overgrown plant to help our environment in a Eco-Friendly way, nice to meet you,” explains the sign.
When we visited, there was no sign of a horse living on the property.
A right of way between 91st Avenue and 92nd Avenue filled with trash. Credit: Azucena Rasilla/The Oaklandside Across from where Hotshot lived, the fenced right-of-way continues where white rabbits graze the overgrown vegetation. Credit: Azucena Rasilla/The Oaklandside
Just across 90th Avenue, a virtually identical abandoned city pathway connects to 89th Avenue. It’s also a chained-off right-of-way with overgrown weeds and strewn with trash. Two white bunnies hopped around gnawing on vegetation. Houston said the rabbits don’t belong to him.
In Houston’s telling, Hotshot had a good life in East Oakland. On the abandoned city pathway, he had grass to eat, plus treats from neighbors who liked to stop by and hang out with what might have been the only pony in the flatlands.
But earlier this year Houston moved Hotshot to a friend’s ranch in Castro Valley. Houston said he had received a handful of complaints about the pony. Plus, he had too much work to do on the city council to be worrying about Hotshot.
“My love is for my community, the animals, life in general,” Houston said. “But I don’t want nothing to distract me.”
## City officials say Hotshot was neglected
Hotshot is well known to Oakland Animal Services.
Joe DeVries, the director of Oakland Animal Services, said his department first started receiving complaints about Houston’s pony in May 2022.
An animal control officer reported that the pony was “being confined in a trailer too small for him to turn around and without other care components,” DeVries told us. The officer spoke with Houston and explained proper care for the pony, and DeVries said that Houston took steps to address those issues.
The 2023 escape was also documented by the city: “[Animal Control Officers] responded to multiple calls involving the horse (named Hotshot) at that location, including incidents where he got loose in traffic and posed a public safety threat,” DeVries said.
Houston later moved Hotshot to the lot on 90th Avenue. In April 2024, Animal Services received complaints from neighbors concerned about the animal’s welfare.
“At that location, [officers] observed ongoing issues with the animal’s care, including lack of water or water that was dirty and unsafe, failure to clean the horse’s living area, insufficient or improper feed, and neglected grooming,” DeVries wrote in his email.
Oakland doesn’t have any specific rules about horses, and DeVries said it is legal to keep a horse in Oakland, but animal control officers have the authority to enforce state laws around basic animal care.
Animal control officers made a point of doing site visits when in the area, and contacted Houston on an ongoing basis to achieve compliance, DeVries wrote. This included ordering him to install a proper water trough and advising him to hire a farrier to tend the horse’s hooves.
In January 2026, animal control brought an equine veterinarian to inspect the horse “due to concerns about apparent recent weight loss and walking issues, indicating a need for proper hoof care.” According to DeVries, the officers issued a formal compliance notice to Houston.
DeVries said that the officers were directed to contact a member of the Oakland Beautification Council — the organization Houston founded and ran until he was elected to the city council in November 2024.
The pony’s owners “provided sufficient documentation that a farrier was hired and that the horse was seen by a veterinarian. They also then confirmed that the horse had been moved to Castro Valley.”
DeVries told us one more thing: animal control officers were unaware that the 90th Avenue lot was city property until officials researched the location earlier this year. He confirmed the property appears as a city right-of-way in the assessor’s parcel map, but has never been a dedicated street in recent history.
We could find no official city record allowing Houston to use the property. Devries agreed with Houston that it was a magnet for illegal dumping in the past.
## Life on a Castro Valley ranch
Houston disputes the information DeVries sent us about the pony’s welfare.
He shared a physical exam notice conducted by St. Louis Veterinary Clinic in Oakland from February. The vet found Hotshot’s physical conditions to be normal, noted that he had recently received his annual deworming, and that his hoofs and shoes were “well maintained.”
He also showed us an email from a city staffer who thanked Houston for sharing proof that Hotshot had visited a farrier for hoof care.
“The hoof care looks excellent and much needed,” the staffer wrote. “The site, including the water trough, is also looking much better following the cleanup. I look forward to the vet exam and continuing to improve Hot Shot’s condition.”
After receiving the vet report from Houston, the staffer told him that the compliance notice was considered satisfied.
As far as Houston’s concerned, the only thing the city got right in its last compliance notice was the issue about needing to clean Hotshot’s lot more than once a week. He questioned how city officials could evaluate Hotshot’s conditions from outside the lot.
“It don’t even make sense,” Houston said.
Houston said it’s unfair he had to move Hotshot, and that he wouldn’t have received the same kind of scrutiny if his pony was living in the Oakland hills.
“But because [he’s] down in the flatlands where they’re not supposed to be, people think something is wrong,” said Houston.
It’s unlikely Hotshot will come back to Oakland. But Houston said he may bring Oakland kids to see the pony at his new stable in Castro Valley.
“I’ll take them on field trips out there.”
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