Every journey has setbacks, and the first one came right away: when I picked up the mustang in Colorado, I discovered that he hadn't been fed well and had lost nearly 200 pounds from his weight in December, when footage was taped for the DVD. I almost turned him down, and even looked at a replacement pen of other geldings. In the end, I took him home with me. He is a black gelding with white markings; I am concerned about how quickly he will gain the weight back, but when he does, he will be a beautiful horse.
So, I have to earn this mustang's trust in a very basic way - by providing him ample food and water at all times. Some guys will deprive a horse in order to wear it down; but this teaches it nothing. Any time a trainer creates an atmosphere of fear for the animal, he/she is opening the way to a fight down the road. Starvation is a fear, at our most basic animal level.
Once our mustang ate his fill through the night Saturday, it was time for introductions. Early Sunday morning, I entered the round pen where the mustang was corraled, knelt down in the sand, and remained motionless there. It was all I could do to stay still! The gelding circled and circled, finally coming up and sniffing my shoulder before again running away. It was a small, but incredibly significant, moment: up until this point, the gelding had not initiated any contact with a human being, but rather had stayed as far away as possible through the various gathers and videotaping. Now, he approached a human out of simple curiosity; a huge step away from avoiding humans based on fear.
Later that morning, I began halter-breaking the mustang. I do this differently than some people: it's a long time before I actually put a halter on the horse's head. Instead, I approached the gelding while I was on another horse and worked on teaching the gelding how to move its feet before ever touching its head.
The presence of another horse is very important. Horses are herd animals, and learn from one another how to behave. This horse, being raised in the wild, has learned from its herd how to avoid human contact, how to protect itself, how to flee from perceived danger. Now, I am using a reliable saddle horse to teach the mustang how to work with a human, how to accept new, scary objects such as ropes and saddles, how to move in a purposeful, controlled way. The older horse, a mare I trained six years ago, will be a mentor to the mustang. I'll use her as much as possible with the mustang so that he begins to look to her for reassurance when he is afraid.
While I am not going to go step-by-step through the halter-training procedure, there are several points I should highlight:
* I begin by working the horse from the back of my saddle horse, moving the gelding around to get it to begin to cross over on its front feet and pivot on a hind foot. This is not a new movement for the gelding, but I am building an association between a certain kind of pressure and that movement -- teaching it to move its feet in response to cues from me.
* Later I move to using a rope, while still horseback, to again teach response to pressure. I work on getting the gelding to cross his hind foot under him because that movement will be important as we progress.
* The next step is roping the gelding around the neck. It's important to use a lariat with a steel honda, one that will immediately release when the horse gives to pressure. At this point, there is a lot of teaching that pressure and release response.
* Once I have the mustang giving to pressure, I work to persuade him to approach my horse. Then I begin gradually touching him - first just a brush on the muzzle, then further up his head. At the end of approximately fifteen minutes of touching, I can rub between and above his eyes. Again, this is a huge turning point: in the wild, if something happens to a horse's eyes, it will go blind, so its instinct is to always protect its eyes. For this mustang to finally allow me to touch that upper part of his head means that he is letting go of his instinctive response in order to learn a different one.
By the end of approximately two hours' time, I have the mustang leading on a halter rope. We've moved from me initially following him around on my horse, him attempting to get away from us, to him following me and my saddle horse, allowing us to lead him. This horse has spent his whole life learning to protect himself; now he has to let that go and allow someone else to protect him. That's not an easy thing to do, for animals or humans. This horse needs a friend.
I remove his BLM neck tag, the one he's worn since his first gather, probably as a two-year-old colt. He is no longer a wild mustang; he's a part of our family now. We name him Amigo. Later that evening, I am able to lead him outside the round pen, out into the meadows of the ranch we manage. It's been an incredible, very satisfying first day on the trail.
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