Double S Mustangs

Missed part 1? Click HERE

Velma was instrumental in passing a bill popularly known Wild Horse Annie Act, making it illegal to use mechanized vehicles (airplane) for roundups. She also proved that the BLM was lying and selling off horses regardless of the new laws. Due to the continued misuse of the mustangs and gaps in the language of the bill, Velma kept battling with congress for changes to the legislation. On December 17, 1971, President Nixon  signed The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burros Act, to fulfill obligation under the Act, it states: “To require the protection, management, and control of wild free-roaming horses and burros on public land” the BLM uses a method called Appropriate Management Level (AML) matching a herds population with the lands capacity to support them. When numbers exceed capacity in a given herds location, called Herd Management Area (HMA) the BLM remove excess animals. The newer bill allows the use of helicopter and airplane gathers. Herds can double in size in just four year and with no natural predators to limited growth rates, they can decimate their food sources and then starve to death.

It is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Many people still distrust the BLM, believing they remove horses from the range at a whim and on the behalf of the ranchers. I cannot speak for the whole of the agency, but the BLM employees I have worked with for over a year have all been professional, educated, and down to earth on the problems the horses and the agency face. I felt they answered my annoying questions with facts and sound logic, and I know they work hard to educate people and care for the horses. Mention Mustangs on my chatroom, rodeo or horse show and your going to get a different opinion stating different facts each time, the wild horse problems” topic, people on both side feel strongly one way or another about how the mustangs should be treated, but I sit in the middle ground. I love seeing the horses remain wild, but I also do what I can in terms of adoption and care. Everyone hates compromise, it leaves a bad taste behind with all its dealings, but I have seen them in the hills, I know what they eat, the harshness of Utah’s climate, and I do not want them to starve and suffer. (I can only speak for Utah and parts of Nevada from personal experience, I’m sure other places are not as barren).

Okay, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Hopefully you have something to think about, and have been given the bug to do some independent research. I can recommend the book America’s Wild Horse: The history of the Western Mustangs by Steve Price, an educational and detail filled book about the mustangs complete history.

So, how did I get involved with mustangs? It was late 2014, early 2015 when I heard from some neighbors that the BLM had dropped off around 1000 horse about 50 miles west of town in a place called Pine Valley. I had recently read some books which had featured mustangs, and I decided to go out and find them. I jumped on the good ol’ Google and searched for direction to the Sulphur HMA. On this fateful trip, I managed to find them (most of my trips to find them now end in failure) I saw only a couple different bands, all were small maybe 5-8 horses in each but during that trip.  Something in me shifted, and I wanted to know more. They were low in the valley, so I could watch them move out for a few precious minutes. Sometimes stopping, sometime trotting they didn’t seem to stressed by us being in their vicinity.

I have seen them in the adoption holding pens, as well as some privately own long term holding corrals. It breaks my heart but knowing that the range isn’t overpopulated, the horses are getting what they need to survive and still live in herd environment while people have an opportunity to give them a home and a job. Ranchers and cattlemen have fair stake at using some grazing land to support their families, and maybe, continue the tradition of the American West for future generations.

How I caught the mustang bug

A few months later, I moved to Portland for 9 months before a very long trip aboard. While there, I watched a film called Unbranded, a documentary about 4 men traveling border to border on mustangs. I loved it! And I may have forced everyone I had any influence on to watch it. It did not matter if they were horse-lovers or not. That movie sold it, I had always wanted to do a cross country ride, not with mustangs at first, but now I wanted to try them. I researched like crazy and even volunteered at a stable that had a couple Kiger mustangs, and one gorgeous buckskin stallion. It was in November that I boarded a plane with some friends and my brother, headed for Thailand. A flurry of activities, and almost a month later we were our way on to Cambodia, then 3 weeks more before we bused into Vietnam and traveled up the country. It was in Vietnam that my brother and I decided to have a road trip through New Zealand, and I applied for a working holiday visa allowing me to stay in the country for a year. I planned to spend that time work exchanging on horse farms through a program called WWOOF, Worldwide Works On Organic Farms.

It’s a great program and I made some pretty amazing friends from all over the world. At my second farm stay, I had my first encounter with a Kaimanawa named Ruby, over the next year I would travel back once a month or so to ride and work, during that time she stole my heart with her sassy, surefooted attitude, and a mostly cool head. It was also here that I met a friend who recommended a backpacker/horse trekking farm, far to the north. She had me sold at “wild horses on the beach”. The man who runs the backpackers has 50 plus feral horses running wild along the beach and hills. It is a magical place, made better by the fact that he taught me how to train his horses, which were pretty amazing on their own. I came away with some knowledge and a thirst to train a mustang 100% by myself (and Google, never underestimate Google).

So now that you have a basic working knowledge of the mustang history and how I began this journey, we can move on to more entertaining things, like my painfully slow, stumbling, and sometimes frustrating work with Remi.