Get With The Program

This beautiful Shackleford mare is eligible for adoption from the Shackleford Wild Horse Foundation. She is ideally suited to be bred to one of my Corolla stallions to produce little ones for the off site breeding program.

1920--5,000 wild Spanish Mustangs on the Outer Banks of North Carolina
2010--Perhaps 250 wild Spanish Mustangs on the Outer Banks of North Carolina
2010--About 20 horses involved in the off site breeding program
2050--?, if we work hard to preserve them. Zero if we do not.

Support the Corolla Wild Horse Fund. Support legislation in Congress to protect these horses. Become part of the off site breeding program.

Heavy Lifting

Up at four, water the horses, load four of them in the trailer, drive 100 miles for the parade in Duck, North Carolina, stay on high alert throughout the parade, never relaxing--a toddler could dart out from the crowd, acid burning a hole all the way through my stomach, hurting from a week old riding injury that reminds me that I am not in high school, part of me telling me that I am too old for this, other part telling me that I never was young enough for this. On the other hand--

A couple of thousand people got a chance to see four beautiful Banker horses under saddle. The horses behaved perfectly. My granddaughter joined me a top Holland at the conclusion of the parade. Perhaps neatest of all Emily Wilda rode in her first parade.

Tomorrow I will return to Corolla for Wild Horse Days to do a day of demonstrations on training a wild Corolla mare.

(Pictured above is They Are Afraid of Her. Her only significant stress is deciding at which nipple to nurse.)

Ride On

 

This is a shot of Rebecca on Annie, the USERL mustang, from the opening day of our summer program. Next Friday I hope that she will be ridden in the woods.

Summer Time in the Promised Land

On the first day of our summer program we had twenty students/visitors. Here is a quick rundown of the day.

8:30 first arrivals, feed up and water herd
9:00 work with the beautiful USERL mustang, Annie, for three hours. Took her through all of our training steps even though she had had a great deal of handling. Amanda rode her on lead. Rebecca rode her independently. Stunning horse, gentle, ambling gait, Vicki, her owner brought her all the way down from Goochland for the day of training. Deborah Lee stopped by with a stunning piece of art work that she gave me which will be the subject of a future post.
11:30 Introduction to stone age technology with a demonstration of the initial shaping of a spear point with the hammer stone and an explanation of the atlatl.
Lunch in the Little House.

Afternoon--construction work on the sweat lodge and stretching of a deer hide
Amanda despooked her Corolla mare, Secotan, in preparation for tomorrow's parade. Ashley rode Daddy's mare Roxie in the round pen and taught her flexing. Demonstration and discussion of the use of the bosal in starting a horse. Abbie worked on inside turns and flexion with Swimmer, our large Corolla mare. Tammy despooked and groomed our yearling 1/2 Corolla Werowance. Rebecca and Adrian worked Rebecca's colt, Crazy Bear.

After supper--Played some old time and Carter family songs with Christian on Guitar, Abbie on the Marvin, Lydia and Emily on vocals and me on banjo. My grandson Aiden closed out the night with two songs that he composed impromptu, both of which were tributes to his favorite person in the world, his father Paul.

Done Misplaced My Bower and My Scraper

I am continually confronted with the tension between the need for the survival of the nearly extinct Corollas to be seen and displayed to the public and my disgust at the suggestion that we must seek the approval of the established horse world for these horses. Everyone interested in the survival of any strain of Spanish mustangs faces this tension whether they realize it or not.

I do not invite confrontation and seek to avoid it if possible. I always invite intelligent discussion of all matters equine. However, I simply find it impossible to pretend that there is any value whatsoever in the conformist creed that passes for knowledge of those in the established horse world.

I cannot get excited when a show breeder or trainer of modern horses pronounces my horses worthy of continuing to exist. Perhaps worst of all, I cannot scrape and bow and seek their approval.

Mustang preservation is less likely to be accomplished with the help of the established horse world than it is by bringing new people into riding and horse ownership. They can learn real horsemanship without having to unlearn generations of absurd beliefs about the horse/human relationship.

Riding a Spanish mustang deep into the woods in the darkest of the night is an intoxicating experience that will never be felt by 99% of current horse owners. As new riders come into the mustang world it is important that we not allow that new wine to be placed in old wine skins.

That is not to say that I am never interested in the opinions of others. For example, I would love to know what Old Joseph, Ollikut, Looking Glass, or Thunder Rolling in From the Mountains would have thought of this colt.