The Mustang Project

Dear Wild Ones,

The Mustang Project is the experiment and documentation of three horsewomen coming together at a Wild Horse Sanctuary in Northern California to tame mustangs, learn about sustainable livelihoods which reconnect wild horses and humans as interdependent, and protect the future of the wild horse in the West.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTxACHsk8M

– Coming this Fall, 2014 –

Three of us will trek North and live with a herd of over 200 wild horses for one month. We will be working to gentle the youngest horses, from horses who have just recently been weaned from their mothers to four year olds’. The Sanctuary where we will be living and working is managed by passionate and competent  advocates who strive to provide the most caring and natural of environments for the horses.

Our goal is to tame the young mustangs who can be placed in loving homes with experienced horsemen. For this operation to work, it is going to require hard-won experience on our part and a skill set centered in patience, confidence, trust, gentleness and respect. It is going to take discernment and openness.

– Stay Tuned –

Documentation of The Mustang Project will begin in late October. We will be regularly updating you with videos and stories of the mustangs we are working with for the experiment.

It’s important to keep in mind that this project is not simply about training horses. It is our way of fighting the injustice that removed these horses from the wild in the first place. By giving these horses a foundation with humans, we give them a place in our world. And when we learn how they got there, we will realize how true it is that the destination is unimportant. It is the journey that matters.

We approach this project to interact with these horses from a standpoint of compassion, patience and understanding. Given the way that they have come to us after being rounded up, using more force and intimidation to train them would be as effective as a match in a wind tunnel. To understand the conditions wild horses arrive in captivity in, you must understand first the process of rounding them up. The following video is an account of a roundup in Nevada that contains explicit and disturbing material. Watch with caution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne3ppBnbr7g

You can learn more about the wild horse roundups facilitated by the Bureau of Land Management that birthed this project by checking out The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign at http://www.wildhorsepreservation.org

And if you’d like to take action to support wild horses, visit Return To Freedom, Wild Horse Preservation and sanctuary at http://www.returntofreedom.com