Olympic gold medal winning equestrian Will Simpson was feted by friends, family and colleagues Thursday night at the Thousand Oaks ranch where he lives and trains.

"Will is our hometown hero," said Gabriella Salick, 34, a professional show jumper who lives in Hidden Valley.

"It's so perfect, and the gold medal couldn't go to somebody more deserving. We just love everything about him."

More than 100 people gathered to relive Simpson's gold-medal-clinching ride in the team show jumping competition held in Hong Kong as part of the Beijing Olympics.

"It was a ride of a lifetime. It made all these years of riding worthwhile," said Simpson as he reflected on his Olympic success.

"It was my first Olympics, and I was the oldest on the team but the rookie," said Simpson, who's 49. "I tried to tell myself it was just another horse show, and it worked great."

Winning the first jump-off in Olympic Games history, the United States broke a tie with Canada to win the team show jumping title in Hong Kong on Aug. 18.

The United States and Canada ended the two rounds of regulation competition tied with 20 penalties.

Simpson's perfect ride in 38.45 seconds on El Campeon's Carlsson vom Dach, a 12-year-old Holsteiner gelding — the third-fastest time in the jump-off — sealed the victory.

"I rarely take a day off because I'd rather be riding horses, and for me, just to get to the Olympics was a dream come true and then to ride and have a horse perform well all the way through was a dream. And then to be able to be in a position to clinch the gold medal for the U.S. team was incredible," he said.

"We've been riding with Will for years and that he did it is so inspirational," said Lori O'Brien, a neighbor of Simpson. "This is amazing, and everybody is happy for him. He's the kind of guy that you wish this would happen for."

Everyone wanted not only to congratulate Simpson in person but also to get an up close look at the gold medal itself, the back of which is partly made of Chinese white jade.

"Words cannot describe it. It's more than cool," said Jackie Nicholson, who works for the Gonda family who own El Campeon Farms as she gazed at the medal.

"This is the real thing, and Will is the real thing, and I'm really happy for him," said actor Robert Sean Leonard who stars in the TV show "House."

"Acting awards are all politics, and it's nice to get them, but they don't mean anything. This is different. Medals are legitimate, and the contests are legitimate."

Simpson's horse is currently in Europe where Simpson will join him in a couple of weeks to compete in Barcelona, Spain, and focus on qualifying for the 2009 Rolex FEI World Cup Final in Las Vegas in April.

And now that he's no longer an Olympic rookie, Simpson says he has his sights firmly set on London in 2012 and on the same horse. "Carlsson is a fresh horse, and he has come out of the Olympic Games still fresh and ready to go," he said. "We could do it easy. Oh, yeah."