Monthly highlights
Volunteer Highlight
Tell us how you got involved in wild horses.
Although my career was in the fire service, my wife and I had a small boarding and training stable in the San Joaquin Valley (California.) How we ended up operating a stable is a story in itself, but through fate I wound up with some great friends and mentors – Pat Parelli, Oscar Thompson, Dr. Deb Bennett, Dennis Reis, Ada Brown, Donna Snyder Smith, and Judy Ryder-Duffy who in turn introduced me to people like Ray Hunt, Oliver Milhous, and other greats. We were mainly into draft horses at the time, but connecting with these people was like living in an academy.
In 1991 the BLM held an adoption in Walnut Creek. Now all these horse people I was exposed to would go on and on about “natural horsemanship.” About that time we were involved with the Acme Pet horse chat room during the dial-up Internet. Some discussions had evolved regarding people struggling with “wild horses” and trying to “get the wild out of them.” What some of those people were doing just didn’t make sense, so I went to the adoption to see what a “wild horse” was actually all about. After all, these were about as many “natural horses” as I was likely to find. A friend of my draft horse partner adopted a gelding he named CJ and asked if I would train him. This was going to be cool! I could actually try “natural horsemanship” on a natural horse.
Fast forward several weeks. One of the BLM volunteers called me to check on the adoption. It sounded like she had a prescribed list of questions.
“You have (horse # xxxx.)”
“Yes.”
“Can you approach him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you halter him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you pick up his hooves?”
“I just trimmed him so I’d say yes.” (My sarcasm was starting to bud.)
“Have you tried to put a blanket on his back?”
“I do every time I saddle him.”
(Pause)
“He’s been saddled?”
“I found it was more calming to both of us than going bareback.”
“You’ve been on his back?”
“Well, yes. I don’t know any other way to ride.”
“Let me understand this, you ride this horse?”
“Yep.”
“Where can you ride, like in a round pen?”
“Well, yesterday we rode to Brentwood (the next town) and back.”
(Another pause).
“Can you and the horse make it to a support session for new adopters in a couple of weeks?”
Fast forward to the adopter support event at Heather Farms Park. While the program was setting up CJ and I killed time playing around in an obstacle course near the “training pen” and dodging speeding bicycles. Then he stood patiently by the training pen with me on his back while some well-intended people struggled with their horses. He may have been as puzzled as I was. Then it was my turn and the local newspaper was all over it. Aside from being totally cool, I’ll admit it was an incredible ego feed. Shortly after, whatever space we had at the stable was occupied with BLM horses where adopters were struggling. The borders became a small crew of enthusiasts that could literally fix anything.
We also noticed a trend. The horses with serious aggressive behavior problems came from the Susanville training facility. We got the BLM to go investigate. They uncovered some abusive practices and shut that program down. That brought us all together to address two issues. The first was that BLM horses needed to be placed with adopters but the adoptions needed to be successful. While the other prison training programs were pretty good, shutting down Susanville would reduce capacity for horses already started, and not everyone was suitable for a totally wild horse. The second was that we needed to get ahead of adoptions in trouble by developing a system where adopters had access to best practices and a support system. Thus, the concept of “Wild Horse Mentors” and “Wild Horse Workshops” was born.
The first Wild Horse Workshop was held in Antioch, CA with the assistance of Barbara Eustiss-Cross’ LIFE Foundation. Barbara worked out the terms with BLM. BLM brought a couple truckloads of panels and a couple of truckloads of horses. We had some great volunteer clinicians such as John Sharp (the grand old master of wild horses.) Frank Bell and Kitty Lauman were among the volunteer staff. The Army even sent 1SG Mark Atwood, who was in charge of the Commanding General’s Mounted Color Guard. Mark was part of the teaching crew and ended up taking a big black gelding back with him – the Army’s first mustang in modern times. This event was the first time that participants could actually get into the pens with ungentled horses and could learn best practices hands-on. We got loads of horses and some burros adopted, and they were all successful adoptions.
For several years that followed, a week-long workshop was held every year in a different part of the country and hundreds of horses and burros found homes. The workshops became a kind of laboratory for refining practices that average adopters could master and “Least Resistance Training” is the standard published in the TIP training manual. BLM also had us produce some training books, “Gentling Wild Horses 101” and similar subjects.
The Initial Virginia Range Connection.
Many of the workshops were in partnership with other wild horse groups. In 2000, Lifesavers was a partner and Jill Starr got Lacy J. Dalton to come perform at the event. Lacy, of course, was a great advocate for the Virginia Range horses and she connected us with Olivia Fiamengo who was the President of the Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association. At that time the VRWPA held the agreement for managing and placing Virginia Range horses and Olivia got us involved. Ironically the horse in Gentling Wild Horses-101 that BLM distributed was “Lucky,” a Virginia Range Horse.
Wild Horses at the Olympics.
In 2001 BLM approached us about randomly selecting some horses and burros to gentle and train for the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. These were winter games and the BLM wanted animals to appear at the games’ Western Heritage display. Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue and the Intermountain Wild Horse and Burro Advisors were also involved in the project. LRTC picked up three horses and three burros and the other two groups picked up three horses each from Litchfield and Butterfield corrals respectively. The animals took turns at the venue which was located next to the cross-country ski track. Some of the horses were taught to shake cowbells as the skiers shushed by. Later they drew great bids at an Internet adoption.
Back to the Virginia Range.
Olivia retired from VRWPA and we agreed to step up and take up the slack. In Nevada the day-to-day management of the state’s Virginia Range herd is delegated to approved non-profit horse groups by means of cooperative agreements. For several years a number of groups had agreements for various activities. Eventually the Department of Agriculture wanted to limit agreements to two categories, population management and range management. That change simplified administration and other groups would operate as subsidiaries to the master Cooperators. For example, LRTC fills the Operations role under the Range Manager, Wild Horse Connection, averaging over 500 responses to large animal incidents per year. AWHC is in charge of population management. It is a process that gets results.
What is your favorite part of volunteering?
We all want to do something positive and of course we are fond of horses, but my favorite part is pulling off the impossible with a very competent crew.
Why are wild horses special to you? What do they represent to you?
I’m really fond of my domestic horses, but wild horses are absolutely the real deal.
Their histories are intriguing, but what is really fascinating is their behavior and how they deal with their world. We don’t simply impress them as would a horse that has been raised by and provided for by humans. You have to earn their respect and that process builds character in us, the handler / trainer. Also, if I need to ride in some really rough country, I’m taking one of the mustangs.
What is/was your day job?
You couldn’t call it a day job but I spent 3 decades in the fire service. After retirement I got drafted by the county to run Animal Services for a while. In both professions I was the large animal lead.
Do you have a favorite memory from the range that you can share with us?With what we did and do, we met incredible people that came from all over the world; Europe, Australia, South America, Asia, but the most incredible range experience on the Virginia Range involved a local, a true Native American Medicine Man named Bejon White Arrow. He could literally “call up” wild animals through meditation. It wasn’t some fluke. He did it repeatedly. We’d point out a band of wild horses. Bejon would walk out, meditate and the horses would come up and form a circle around him. One of the photographers spotted a young coyote that ducked behind some brush and he lamented that he missed getting a photo. Bejon meditated for a few moments and the coyote came up and sat down on the Jeep trail for a photo. Truth sometimes really is stranger than fiction.
With respect to my all-time favorite horse memory, it wasn’t exactly on the range. On break during the Wild Horse Workshop in Tooele, UT, we were invited to the Butterfield Corrals where we got to go inside a large corral of about 100 stallions and watched them show off for us. A professional videographer was on hand.
What other animals have you seen on the range?
Mule deer, marmots, porcupines, bobcats, various snakes, one time just a glimpse of a cougar, various birds including a pair of golden eagles, cottontails and jackrabbits, chipmunks, you name it. For a while a coyote would accompany me out on trail rides as my horse would scare up rodents for an easy meal.
Okay, aside from horses, what is your favorite animal?
I would have to say dogs.
If a theme song played every time you go out on the range, what would your theme song be?
Run, Mustang, Run by Lacy J.Dalton.
If you had to eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?Not horse, that’s for sure. Probably Santa Fe Chicken Salad.
What’s the next place on your travel bucket list?
Probably the bathroom. Why would I want to go anyplace but where I am?
Springtime Shuffles
By Deborah Sutherland
(March 8, 2023) It’s almost springtime in the Virginia Range and the band shuffling has begun. This is the time of year when many wild horse bands acquire new family members. Band stallions fight each other and steal mares while bachelors get restless and wrestle with each other, also in competition for mares. Even though the wind blows and snow falls, the springtime band shuffles have started.
It was a cold winter day just after a snow storm when I met Curly’s band for the first time. They were walking close together as they marched down the road towards me. I didn’t recognize the band as I documented them but later found out it was the cute pinto stallion Curly and his mares Maeve and Cameron who had come down the mountain. They stayed for a while and as I was leaving I saw them quietly resting near Apache’s band. They looked tired from their long journey.
A few weeks later when I was out on the range, I noticed a few new faces in the distance with stallion Lionheart and his mares Valentine and Tesari. It was Curly’s mares Maeve and Cameron, and Curly was nowhere to be seen. Lionheart stole Curly’s mares! As Lionheart’s now larger band crossed my path his mare Valentine, who was attacked by a bear a few months ago, stopped to look at me. I was happy to see that the claw marks on her neck and face were completely healed and that young Tesari was still with the band. In just a few months this handsome red roan stallion Lionheart went from being a bachelor to having a band family with four beautiful mares. He stood in front of them on guard that day as he watched the other stallions who were traveling nearby. I didn’t see Curly but I’m sure he was out actively searching for a new family.
Only a few days later in the same area of the range I observed Rooster’s band grazing in a field not too far from Steener’s band. A team member noticed from a distance that Rooster had lost two mares but we weren’t sure which ones. We finally figured out that one of Rooster’s missing mares was Georgia when we saw her with Steener’s band.
While I was documenting this band change I watched Steener as he guarded his band closely as some bachelors approached them. The young bachelor Paulo, who was usually no threat, bravely walked right up to Steener. They wrestled for a while but neither stallion was hurt and when they were finished, Steener escorted Paulo away from his family and newly acquired mare who were gathered together watching the commotion.
These are only a few of the band switches that have taken place and time will tell what other changes will happen on the range this spring but it’s clear that the band shuffling has already begun!
