A quick ride to check cows on the forest after a day of gentling wild horses turned into a spectacular light show.

It was 4yo Devil’s Garden Mustang gelding DG Littlefoot’s first “big boy” ride, saddled and being ridden the entire 8 1/2 miles rather than sharing the workload with 7yo Divide Basin Mustang mare Lacy (dun). The young bay gelding took to it in stride, without any buddy sourness or excitement. Better yet, he carried a rider he was unfamiliar with for the first 6 miles until we swapped horses, through a storm rolling in, with wind gusts and flying hats, without ever batting an eye. For the final leg of the ride I ponied Blaze off of him. He made some unsure ear movements the first two minutes, then continued trucking right along with the older, much more assertive gelding in tow. That’s what bringing young horses along under saddle is all about. With a solid foundation there’s no need for a rodeo.

This ride was also DG Blaze’s first outing since arriving at Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy a few days prior. I gentled the now 10yo golden buckskin branded Devil’s Garden Mustang gelding back in 2019 through the TIP program. Blaze has the stallion look and battle scars from growing to maturity in the wild paired with an amazing disposition. Since his adoption he has been a pack and riding horse for a friend of mine who recently needed to rehome Blaze due to health reasons. The gelding has had the winter off and we are now easing him back into work.

Ponying is a great step in doing that so long as the horse being ponied has a basic understanding of leading and giving to pressure and you have a good enough handle on the horse you’re ponying off of to only need one hand in most situations. You have to be able to shut down any fights between two horses that might not know each other or not usually be that close to one another.

Once the initial ground work is done and we have established the basics of a relationship, pony, pack and ground drive are the steps I take before I ride a horse, even one that just needs a refresher. I’m a few years past the “looks like a horse, sure I’ll get on” stage. Breaking the process down into steps is so much easier for the horse too and gives them and me the chance to get to know one another better as we navigate the prep work together.

DG Littlefoot’s Best Ever Pads was kindly sponsored by Horse Show Mom , a wonderful, small horsewoman-owned business.

Tesla, 5yo Warm Springs, OR Mustang gelding has been an interesting one to work with. Not because he’s a “bad” horse but because of the baggage he carries. He has been bounced around several times, including a trip to auction, before his current owner got him. Various unsuccessful attempts to gentle the gorgeous bay gelding have left their mark and made this horse, for lack of a better word, angry.

When he first came he was nervous, unsettled and would protect his face with evasion, teeth and front feet. His eyes were hard and his muzzle distorted with tension. Thankfully he arrived here just in time for our workshop with Mustang Matt Horse Trainer last month and it took Matt’s mad haltering skills and willingness to quite literally put his life on the line to get this traumatized horse headed in a better direction.

Fast forward a little over a month and the hardness in Tesla’s face is mostly gone. He’s still worried and I can’t say I blame him. You don’t just wipe away years of trauma and start fresh. This is the beginning of his un- and re-learning process and I’m proud of him.

What has been fascinating to me is that Tesla is basically two different horses. The one that gets alarmed over anything near his head, and the one that enjoys touch everywhere else and loves to sniff and explore his surroundings when we walk together, that’s willing, brave and soft. The conclusion Matt and I came to was that the second one is the “real” Tesla, whereas the first one is a mask he has learned to wear out of a perceived need to defend himself.

When he first got here, he couldn’t stand still and was ready to eat anything that came near his face. That was concerning until I discovered somewhat by accident that the one thing that calmed him down was… touch. I’d rub him with the stick and he’d settle down as if it helped him come back to the present moment and into his body. Not that different with human trauma survivors. That’s why weighted blankets and hugs (even butterfly hugs we encourage them to practice on themselves) can have a soothing effect on an overstimulated nervous system.

I was concerned about how Tesla and I would get along when Matt left. He was (and still can be) a lot of horse. With time we figured each other out. It’s taken a variety of tools and methods to get him to this point (not shown here but he loads, was a good boy when his human mom came to visit him, and has had an acutherapy treatment with Maya Suzuki LAc (ShinKyu University). A horse like Tesla is a good reminder that we can’t ever have too many tools in our toolbox, and that teamwork really does make the dream work, in this case Bree Thompson ‘s dream to keep this guy safe, be able to touch and care for him, and hopefully one day make a riding horse out of him.

Overview of approaches used: positive and negative reinforcement, shaping (successive approximations), targeting, counter conditioning and CAT-H. We did actively correct behaviors that are dangerous to humans and land horses in bad places, e.g. lunging at people and objects, biting and striking.