Double S Mustangs

The end of the holiday season can elicit many emotions, relief, joy, nostalgia, anxiety, the list goes on and on. A lot of people welcome the New Year with open arms and high hopes, and the feeling of starting fresh with new opportunities just around the corner. I welcomed the New Year this year with a bone deep exhaustion and disgust from the events of the past two days. On the 30th of December, while sledding with my family, my 5 year old nephew sustained a concussion and had to be sent to a major children’s hospital in northern Utah. To compound the stress and anxiety for my nephew, the morning of the 31st, I woke up to my worst nightmare, 3 of the 5 mustangs had gotten out of their corral and were nowhere to be seen.

It had snowed the night before, and I was not in the greatest of moods, I was late heading out to feed the horses and as is my habit, I searched for the horses as soon as I started down the lane. Cali and Rose were in the near pen, and looking past them I scanned for the buckskin of Ruger or Mosses black form against the white snow. Nothing.. A slight panic started, my eyes jumped to the gate and sure enough, it was wide open. “Crap” I jogged quickly down the lane until I reached the corrals where my domestic horses are. I assumed they had headed out for a visit, but no, no loose horses running around causing chaos. Real panic set in as I backtracked and searched around the rest of the farm buildings. I live in the middle of hay fields so it is easy to spot missing animals, but to my horror, all the fields were conspicuously empty of the beasts. I ran to the house and told everyone we needed to get in the vehicles and go look for them. My mom and I took off, hoping to find them only a mile or two away and did a large block section around the farm, no luck. My sister was in my truck, and she headed off to the west. We started down another road and about 2 miles away from the house, and spotted them in a barren field. My sister had parked near them, gotten out and was walking towards them to catch either Ruger or Remi, when her gelding Moss, spotted her (he likes my sister’s boyfriend more) and took off at a dead run to the north, with the other two following suit.

After following the horses at a distance for about 2 miles, I managed to get near Remi, but she had transitioned into wild mood and she did not recognize me, at that moment I believe she was re-living the stress and trauma of her roundup. She took off again and we followed at a distance, the horses had been cantering/galloping for about 3 miles and Ruger was already starting to fall behind. He was born in the holding pens and has never had to run for miles on end.  My sister was in front of us and about a mile down a road heading east, Ruger broke off from the other two and ran down a fenced field, she stopped to catch him, and we kept following Remi and Moss. It was an extremely stressful situation at this point, because they were headed towards one of the bigger highways. Luckily, the storm that morning had people in their homes longer than usual and the roads were mostly empty. When they hit the road, they turned south, and cantered down the middle of the asphalt road. They eventually moved off the road and continued through the fields.

I knew that they would eventually come to a fence that would stop them, but what worried me was if they tried to go through a cattle guard. We followed for a long time from the road while the cantered through fields and we parked on the cattle guard. They hit the fence and started towards us, I ran out and tried to talk Remi back into the human world, but she wasn’t ready to come back and took off again, following the fence line. My dad had joined the fray by this point and we converged on a point together to block the horses from 3 sides, also near a cattle guard. The road they were rapidly approaching on, had sheep pens built on one side and was fenced on the other, so they were moving through a tunnel. I had a bucket of grain in the car and when they came stop by us, I managed to get her to stop long enough to take a few bites. Grain has always been a weakness of Remi’s but she still wouldn’t let me near with the lead rope, and she was still trotting around in small circles, looking for a way to go. I knew if she was able to get through a fence, I would never be able to catch her again, she would return to her desert home.

So I dropped the lead rope entirely and just grabbed her neck, basically in a hug. My dad handed the lead to me, and finally I slipped the halter on her face. I led her into the sheep pen and Moss followed, then my parents went off to get the horse trailer, pickup Ruger and my sister, before coming back for me. I walked in 30 meter circles for about 45 minutes. It was 10 degrees without the wind chill, and by the time they got back, I was frozen. When the trailer arrived both horses loaded without a fuss, a big feat considering Moss has never practiced trailer loading before.

I still do not know how the gate was opened, but I assume someone probably forgot to latch it. But I learned a very valuable lesson, you can’t run down a mustang. I had never given much thought to why the BLM uses helicopters, now I realize why, mustangs will outrun and out maneuver any land vehicle. Mustangs will always outrun you.                

I’ve roughly drawn a map that follows the path the horses took, and googled the distance that we drove, it was over 10 miles. The horses undoubtedly ran more than that.