When I Was Twenty-One, It Was a Very Good Year

I wish every mustang owner, of every type of mustang, would quit acting like house slaves. For those not familiar with the term, house slaves were distinguished from field slaves in that that were the household staff on the larger plantations. They tended to be given better food, better clothes and often lived in better housing, close to the big house on the plantation. They were considered by their owners, and usually by themselves, to be superior to the slaves that worked in the fields. Many house slaves looked down on the field slaves to the point of treating them with contempt.

There are many kinds of mustangs out there and many mustang registries. Unfortunately there are too many mustang owners who look down on mustangs not of their registry as field slaves,-- impure, not to be trusted, dangerous, and of inferior blood. In doing so they hope to convince the established horse world that their horses are just like the modern breeds in that they are superior to the other, mongrel mustangs. Like the house slaves they look with contempt at other mustangs without even seeing the irony of seeking to impress their oppressors by showing off how much they too despise the despised.

I am not interested in impressing Ole Massah and Ole Misses. They are the very ones who have created an established horse world in which the cost of horse ownership is beyond the means of working families. They are the very ones who have hamstrung modern breeds with their obsessive drive to follow the latest fad or fashion in breeding. They are the very ones who have set up the model of competition as the highest and best use of horses. They are the very ones who support horse slaughter. The field slave who runs wild on the ranges of Nevada is not the enemy of my mustangs, it is Ole Massah and Ole Misses.

Every time a mustang owner maligns a BLM mustang by pointing out how different their mustang is from a BLM they denigrate all mustangs. It is a strategy doomed to failure. Do you really think that the slave owners accepted house slaves as their equals merely because the house slaves joined them in ridiculing the field slaves?

My herd includes wild horses of several different backgrounds and I am proud of everyone that we ride. I own a grandson of the great Choctaw Sundance who is registered with the SMR, HOA,and AIHR and is becoming everything that I could want in a horse. I have bred a Chincoteague to several BLM mares and have produced horses that already are everything that I could want in a horse. I recently picked up a BLM filly that may exceed them all in a few years. I do not think of her as "just" a BLM mustang.

When I was younger I thought that the world was a place of justice in which reason, logic, and education would prevail. I am no longer twenty one. In fact, I am older than two 21's. I now realize that ignorance, prejudice, and plain old stupidity, will give reason, logic, and education a run for its money every time they come face to face. I do not try to get Ole Massah to accept my horses as the equal of his well bred steeds. I cannot over come his prejudices. I do not beg Ole Misses to recognize the qualities of my mustangs. I cannot pour a brain into her head.

Instead, I invite those new to the horse world into my world of mustangs. Their views have not yet been tainted by the experts. They can actually learn. They are the only hope for the future that mustangs have.

(The picture above is of a twenty year old wild Corolla stallion taken by one of my riders a few weeks ago. He doesn't care about Ole Massah either)