FALLBROOK MALL TO HIRE MOUNTED PATROL.

Byline: Susan Goldsmith Daily News Staff Writer

Wanted: Urban cowboys willing to ride the dusty blacktop of the Fallbrook Mall, help wayward customers find their cars and keep an eye peeled for desperadoes. Must have own horse - not too cantankerous.

Hoping to lure more customers and deter would-be troublemakers, the Fallbrook Mall may become the first shopping center in California to hire a private mounted patrol force to roam the parking lot each weekend, mall officials said.

The patrol members aren't intended to replace existing security but act as buckaroo ambassadors, assisting customers and using hand-held radios to alert mall police to trouble.

``They're an extra set of eyes and hears in the parking lot, and they're higher up than somebody on foot,'' said Sherry De Covich, Fallbrook's marketing director. ``And, of course, it's great to have a horse escort you to your car if you're lost. They can see over row after row and find your car.''

The company providing the patrol, Texas-based Alpha and Omega Services, already has hired three local riders and is looking to hire two more in the coming weeks.

The firm, which calls its service the ``Royal Courtesy Mounted Patrol,'' will begin patrolling the 130-store shopping center's parking lot May 4, using two riders at a time, said E. John Keller, chairman of the Southlake Texas company.

The patrol members will wear Smokey the Bear hats, gold-trimmed scarlet-and-blue outfits and high black riding boots.

``We don't replace security, but we're a crime deterrent. We also act as a kind of public relations firm that helps attract shoppers and assists them,'' he said. ``We've been called maitre d's on horseback.''

Some 35 malls around the country have hired private patrol members to guard their parking lots, realizing the visible presence of the 1,000-pound animals discourages car thefts, aids traffic flow and gives riders a good view of what's going on, said Mark Schoifet, a spokesman for the New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers.

Although private mounted patrols are growing in popularity in other parts of the country, Schoifet said this is the first such service he has heard of in California.

In recent years, the Fallbrook Mall has been beset with crime problems. In 1993, a mall employee was shot to death outside the shopping center and last year, a Taft High School student was killed when a gunman sprayed bullets into a group of people leaving the mall's theater.

To combat crime and the perception that the mall was unsafe, traditional security was stepped up and during the holidays officials hired the mounted patrol company on a temporary basis, De Covich said.

Response was so great, mall officials decided to make the horseback patrols permanent.

``It was overwhelmingly popular. Everybody likes horses,'' she said. ``We also saw a decrease in car break-ins, thefts and vandalism in the parking lot.''

During interviews, prospective patrol members must jump a small fence on horseback, ride through sprinklers and walk through flares in lighted rows. Horses also are tested for noise sensitivity and ability to deal with children, Keller said.

Once hired, riders go through a kind of five-day boot camp to prepare them for parking lot patrols, he said.