Mustangs in the Marsh

On Thursday we had our quarterly meeting of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund. I went down along with Brent, Lisa and Jacob. Jacob is twelve or thirteen, a very bright kid with a lot of leadership potential--in short exactly the type of person that will be well suited to protect mustangs for the next generation. He got a chance to see two great things--beautiful wild Corolla Spanish Mustangs and the mundane workings of a board meeting of the volunteers and staff that make it possible for those few remaining wild Spanish Mustangs to continue to be wild and free.

The wild horses have a range of about 95 acres per horse. This time of year that 95 acres contains absolutely nothing that most people would think of as horse food. We watched a small herd munch happily on twigs, honey suckle vines, and green brier.
The most striking thing about being with those horses was seeing the remarkable condition that they were in. I saw one mare who could use some weight, otherwise the entire herd looked spectacular. The hoof prints left in the sand revealed perfectly balanced heels and large, well functioning frogs.

In fact, they looked healthier than one would expect to find in a herd of domestic horses the same size. Of course, this appearance was not an illusion. Their lifestyle is so superior to that of most domestic horses who are shod, fed sugar, layered in blankets, and isolated in stables that no fair comparison can be made. Looking at the wild herd did give hope that domestic horses may face a brighter future as more and more people learn about the humane advantages of natural horse care.

Now on to the most important point. Swimmer is a Corolla mare about six or seven years old. She is a bit larger than I prefer, and is perhaps over 14 hands. She had to be removed from the wild because she had a penchant for swimming out of the preserve. She spent two or three months with me where my riders trained her to saddle. On September 20 she was ridden 46 miles in one day and on Oct 3, she was featured at the annual meeting of the Horse of the Americas Registry.

She is eligible for adoption now and I certainly hope that she is adopted by someone who loves these horses enough to use her to raise pure Corolla Spanish Mustangs in our off site breeding program. She is gentle, friendly, and has been ridden extensively, albeit over a short period of time.

She currently is residing on a horse facility in North Carolina while awaiting adoption. Please go to the web site of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund to learn more about the adoption program. She is a great horse and deserves to be adopted by a great family.

(The picture above is of a wild Corolla Stallion taken last summer.)