Pain In The Neck

Fights between wild stallions are rarely to the death. This one would have been but for the intervention of the staff and volunteers of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund. The young stallion was captured and taken to a veterinary hospital where he spent two weeks and was delivered to us five days ago. This picture, taken shortly after the fight does not really show just how deeply he was bitten and how much flesh is missing.

The round pen in which we placed him had to be moved. It was close to the road and the gaping wound was so striking that he was causing traffic to come to a near halt as people passed by. I do not shock easily at wounds. Horses, like dogs, have a remarkable ability to recover from significant soft tissue injuries so I do not go into a panic everytime I see a bit of missing horse skin.

This one shocked me. However, I expect that he will fully recover. He is full of life and seems to be in no discomfort. I assume that the nerves in the region were destroyed along with the muscle tissue.

For the foreseeable future I will have to cleanse and medicate his would daily. He is wild and has Red Feather like athleticism. In short, if he so desired he could put me out of my misery with the greatest of ease. He does not so desire. In fact, he whickers out for me as I approach and stands well for the cleansing and medicating.

It is an amazing thing to stand there and care for him. It strikes me that in all of this world I am the only person at the moment who has the privilege to participate in the care and rehabilitation of this stallion. There in his small pen stands 2% of the breeding age stallions of the group that makes up the oldest and rarest distinct genetic strain of American horses.

His body may be of steel but his DNA is made of very fragile crystal. He represents part of the hope that these horses have for survival for another five hundred years. Before the Civil War, before the Revolution, before Jamestown, he was here. That alone is enough to make every effort to save him and the DNA that he carries.

But that is not the only reason to do so. He is part of a remnant of horses who are gentle enough to be trained by children, strong enough to carry heavy adults, and smooth enough to be ridden by people well past their own prime.

That is why my little riders and I worked so hard to save Croatoan and Valor. That is why we must work hard to promote their breeding in captivity and even harder to preserve their life in the wild.