Saving Wild Mustangs: Trainer Tracy Porter Leads the Herd!
Our 3 Mustang’s Arrive: How different are they?
By Tracy Porter
Last month I confessed that we are in the Extreme Mustang Makeover at the Midwest Horse Fair April 20th-22nd. I confessed that we are taking not one, but three mustangs! TJ Clibborn, Olivia McNulty (our 18 year old student) and myself each have a 3 year old mare. TJ’s and Olivia’s horses are from the same Warm Springs Canyon herd in Nevada, while mine is from a Twin Peaks herd from California.
TJ’s horse is named Red, Olivia’s is Indy and my mare is Mini Mouse. They are all a different color, size, body shape and personality. As I write this we are in our 5th day since we picked them up in Mequon Wisconsin. Before coming to Wisconsin, they were in a holding facility in Elmwood Nebraska. All three are kind. TJ’s and Olivia’s are a bit more reactive than mine. Because of the chute size they were not able to put halters on the horses. TJ had a halter on Red first, Mini was next on the first day. It wasn’t until the third day that Indy was wearing one. All though all the horses had to accept having their face touched, Indy has had a very difficult time accepting it and since Olivia has never had a horse or trained one herself…haltering it made it easier for her to work with Indy. So we helped her get thru that stage. Indy also needed to learn it was ok to turn and face and by building her confidence she began to take steps forward toward humans and then allow herself to be approached. Indy likes to be brushed and is comfortable having her front legs brushed and her front feet picked up. She is getting much better about having her head rubbed, Olivia is still working on her face. Although Indy is now more comfortable accepting humans walking up to her and is even coming up for attention! Repetition is important at this stage in the training. It would be better to spend a minute or two with Indy and walk away and come back every 3 minutes for an hour than to spend one solid hour with her. The reason is that Olivia would be approaching her 11 or 12 times in one hour instead of just once, meaning Indy gets to go thru the anxiety of Olivia approaching her multiple times in a day. Each time Olivia or anyone else approaches Indy, the anxiety she goes thru gets less intense with time. That is why it is important to keep repeating until it is no longer necessary and Indy is totally comfortable with people coming in and visiting with her.
Olivia is now able to lead Indy thru the barn and around the arena. Still at times Indy gets a little stuck and needs a restart as she has just graduated from having to have a guide horse in front and a person encouraging her forward from behind to get her thru the arena into the round pen.
In the round pen, she is very curious about the obstacles and has little hesitation about going thru, over or around the obstacles at liberty. It helped to use a seasoned horse for her to follow his example of how to proceed thru the course. There was a major improvement in her ground work from the 4th to the 5th day! She went from taking her head to the outside and dragging me around the round pen to floating her hip with her nose slightly tipped in on the 4th day…then came out the next day and I barely had to direct her and she yielded her hips and shoulders like she had been dancing with me on the ground for years…okay months!
The key to taking the brace out of the horse is to get them to float their hips while maintaining forward movement. Ironically forward movement is improved by floating the hip just as floating the hip is improved by having good forward movement. You can’t have either without the other! Incidentally floating the hip many times is easier to teach at the trot and you will find that it also improves the horses walk!
After working on floating the hip, she was doing well enough to start easy sacking out with a small blanket, large blanket, longe line and a saddle. She ended comfortable wearing a cooler and having Olivia swing a saddle up on her back from both sides. Again more improvement on day 5 as we girthed up her saddle and she walked, trotted and cantered without bucking or panicking! The key to her not having an explosive reaction was that I babied her. I eased the rope on and off as if it was a girth, did the same for the actual girth by pulling it tight and then totally releasing it. I chose the Wintec outback saddle without stirrups on purpose. It is light weight enough to put on and take off a million times, I can let it fall on the ground without worrying about it getting scratched and I can add the stirrups and control the length from very short to normal lengths. The bottom line is that we were very successful and this horse that doesn’t need any setbacks was very accepting as we slowly increased walk speed and then trotting continually stopping and restarting before her emotions could take off into full flight. We were even able to begin teaching her to move laterally over to the mounting block and allow leaning over her back and putting weight into the stirrup with the hand and leaning.
She’s still a horse that needs a lot of repetition so I suspect that for the next few days it might be safe to say she will be still practicing basic ground work (which includes: forward, backing, lateral forward, Lateral backing at the walk and trot), saddling and then repeating the ground while saddled and adding back in the obstacles and of course practicing and perfecting stepping over to the mounting block!
While Indy is pretty reactive and it is pretty easy to get her to move away from you, Red, although also is pretty reactive needed to learn that it was not acceptable to push on or towards a human when she feels pressure whether it is to ask her to move off or is the result of her reaction to something that happened in the universe or perhaps the way she interpreted what you were asking her to do. The difference between the two horses is that TJ’s horse, Red, gets scared, she can become a bit bronc-ey, It is important to note that all three at arrival would not have hesitated to run over you if they felt trapped.
TJ’s horse accepted a saddle blanket and lead rope cinch the first day. She was softening and giving her head to the side and was quite comfortable following and leading in her stall. The second day he led her thru the barn into the round pen and worked her there. There she was more likely to run him over than in the stall, although he did have to address it in the stall as well. Both Red and my horse Mouse, had an issue with backing up. They never found the chapter on backing in their Mustang Handbook! Backing up is not a natural maneuver for horses and wild horses rarely take more than the one step it takes to find an escape route! Ironically I was so exhausted getting Mouse to understand moving laterally that I didn’t have the energy to get her to back, so TJ took over. And just to be nice, or I think it was more that TJ was starting to get frustrated with Red and her lack of backing and moving her shoulders…so I returned the favor and taught her for him. Sometimes it helps to take steps back and other times it is really nice to have someone else around to lend a hand or offer a different training perspective especially when you’re having to accomplish so much in a short time…we sometimes get tunnel vision and become brain dead.
Currently TJ’s horse is carrying a saddle, is confident in the obstacles and has much better ground work and getting better at basic round pen work. He has yet to work her outside the round pen in the arena, but that is on deck for tomorrow and I suspect he will possibly be riding her tomorrow as well or at least the next day which will be day 7.
My horse Mini Mouse is currently the superstar of the three. She is not only the cutest, but the smallest. The other two are beautiful and elegant…but she is adorable in her own way! When we picked up the horses, Mouse ignored the request to turn from the lady with the flag. She called out “Stupid Horse” which offended me at the moment…HEY LADY! THAT’S MY HORSE YOU ARE CALLING STUPID! Confession: I thought about saying it…but the lady scared me and I thought she might not give me this wonderful mustang!
I wrote above how I haltered her on the first day. Prior to haltering her, I began taking out the witches knots she had acquired over her first three years. This helped build her confidence in me and allowed me to spend a lot of time on her side without her moving away. I then began to brush her neck and barrel, back and top of her rump on both sides. She decided that the brushing was a pretty good deal and that got me close enough to start the drape with the halter. The first shot I had at scooping her nose and tying the rope halter on I took and succeeded! At that point, I was thrilled and could have slept like a baby with that accomplishment under our belt! But instead I began getting her to give and follow pressure and soon was having her follow the pressure of the rope even if it was wrapped around her body. I also used the rope as a cinch and she took that like a champ! The last thing I decided to do was open the stall door and take her for a walk down the barn aisles. With a mustang, this is the moment of truth! In the holding corrals, they are used to being moved down aisles to pens or loading chutes, so when you start leading them down the aisle, it is quite possible that they click into their former mode of moving from point A to point B..and you might be waterskiing behind them. My little star started leading very well, if anything she was a little too social with a few of the resident horses and needed a little prodding by TJ and a flag to move along with me. Unlike Bling-Bling who was terrified by a flag, Mouse pretty much was dull to it. It all depends on how the wranglers have used the flags on the horses, yes some are just plain reactive horses…but I think some probably didn’t need much flagging and got a little more than what was necessary, just as some of the gathers are a lot harder on the horses than others, but there is plenty of information on the internet if you are interested in that bit of controversy.
We had a great first day and it was finally time to let our horses rest and ourselves as well. I had not been in the house more than a few hours when I decided that I should go down and check the horses. During the day when I was helping Olivia or doing other chores, I had noticed that Mouse did not eat much hay. So being a little concerned for her and wanting to check the three and make sure they were all still locked where they were supposed to be, I put on minimal clothing and scampered down to the barn. Sure enough, she had not eaten much, but began to eat after I opened her stall door and began talking to her. Hmm, she needs my company to dine? While I watched her, I thought…this horse trusts me…a lot already. She wasn’t nipping me anymore out of fear, but more mouthy out of curiousness. So I went to the tack room and got a few things. A large cotton blanket, pad and a saddle. I messed with the blanket for a few minutes…ho-hum and then I showed her the saddle and she gave it a glance so I placed it on her back. Then I took it all off and put a cooler on her…she looked as if she was a princess Of course I did have my phone with me so I not only took her picture, but I also posted them on Facebook so when I got back to the house TJ thought I went down to sneak in another training session!
Mouse’s progress is quite a bit faster than the other two. She certainly has not been perfect but once I made it past her quirks and we got on the same page…we have been going along together like a well oiled machine. On the second day I had to wash her belly as she came with so much dried urine and manure on her chest, girth, belly and barrel. She was very accepting of my efforts to clean her up and was standing very well as I worked. At one point, Olivia’s horse Indy returned to the stall and TJ then took his horse Red to the arena. She heard Red’s whinney and reared straight up. Believe me, she might be a small little horse, but on her hind legs, she is quite tall! After this major infraction, she settled down and I was able to get back to work without another incident. During my cleaning she began too fidget a little and instead of having this become a bad learning situation, I simply flipped the lead around a bar and taught her patience to stand. This not only kept her from bumping or running me over but kept her lips and teeth from investigating me. She has a little temper and learned that it is NOT okay to strike with your feet when you are not getting your way. It took me about 45 minutes to an hour to clean her up and I had a very good tying horse in the end. I released her and let her relax and dry while I went into the arena to see how Red was doing. When Red was finished it was her turn in the round pen. She led like an old pro thru the barn, past some boarded horses in the tie up area into the arena and down to the round pen. We started with some basic ground work and I got to address the same pushiness I had in the stall. Since she was clearly unfazed by the flag…I used the round pen fence to get her to understand that you can move laterally also known as sideways. The reason I picked lateral is because I had her hip moving well, but she would push right back forward when you asked for a backward thought. I got a couple steps here and there…but they were stiff heavy and I sensed that she was capable of doing much better. So I decided to focus on lateral which is halfway between forward and back. What I got was LOTS of forward which meant this little beast was all over me. Deciding that even with her demur size, she still outweighed me by a few hundred pounds, I thought of a few rather large warmblood lap dogs that I had the same problem with…so I introduced my little one to lateral by using the fence to keep me safe. It took her about three quarters around the pen before she began to step laterally. She repeated this in both directions. I was so glad I chose this method when her popular response was to rear. Eventually she realized rearing was not a good answer and that was the last time she was on 2 legs. I am going to keep that little talent of hers in the back of my head for later use! Much later! After I was totally worn out TJ wanted me to saddle her, I said that she did not back yet and I didn’t have the arms left to do it. So as I mentioned earlier, this was when he worked on her back. What took him a few minutes would have certainly been an agonizing ordeal for me in my present state! So, then I used my remaining arm strength to saddle my little Mouse! She walked and trotted around the pen. I didn’t ask her for canter as I needed a lot better forward and I was pretty happy with her progress for day 2! We finished off by wearing a winter blanket and having a few hairs trimmed with the electric clippers!
The 3rd day we started out by going out of the arena for our first walk! She did great and it was her first time not being contained by a wall or fence. Then we made our way to the arena stopping by the bathroom where Mouse was a little curious about what was behind the door number 1! The tradition of taking a photo of the mustangs in the bathroom began with my first mustang mare, Socks. It has become a defining moment for when a mustang changes from wild one to domestic partner and follows me into the bathroom where I take their photo doing whatever it is they do in a bathroom. Which is usually being plain nosey. After this monumental moment, we went into the arena and we reviewed our ground work which she was so much improved from what she learned the day before. I then dragged out a pedestal and taught her to step aboard it with all four feet and stand. Of course this reinforced stop go, stop go, stand. When she mastered that we went back to ground work and then the pedestal again. Then it was time for a new task, so she worked on learning a cue to bow on her right and left legs. We added in another task, “learning to park correctly by a mounting block”! She quickly mastered it, so I leaned over her back and of course took pictures of the view from her back! Then it was finally her turn in the obstacle round pen. The first thing she did was walk up on the mattress and start biting and pulling it up. Then she went to a barrel and bit it and then pulled it between her front legs. At the duct work, she picked up the shiny tube and carried it 10’ before dropping it on the tarp when she became intrigued with the streamers. Here she began to walk thru, but snatched a quick bite and I had to reach in her mouth to get the piece of plastic. Had I not been videotaping her, I probably would have stopped her sooner. Now that she had the taste for plastic, she apparently really wanted some streamer and tried it again on another pass. For the second time, I risked my own finger and arm and reached in and pulled it out of her mouth before it went down. I guess my lack of concern comes from my days as an alligator owner. I suppose if you can deal with those jaws…a wild horses are nothing to be scared of! To keep her from tasting anymore of our training tools, I decided she could go thru at trot and she even cantered and jumped over the duct work a few times!
The last thing we did on day 3 was have our first ride! TJ ponied me around and we only walked, but she did a fantastic job! Today she earned her own Gortex blanket, I tucked her in and she slept very well and I am sure she had good dreams!
Day 4 was even better than day 3. We warmed up with our ground work and then I saddled her. Her movements were fluid and I felt like I was dancing her, forward, back, lateral, float the hip reverse. Very nice, I was so proud of her progress. Then I rode her by myself at a walk and a trot, she followed my rein requests pretty well and it didn’t hurt to have TJ riding on Beat Me for her to follow although we did get a little behind him from time to time. I unsaddled her and began to leave the round pen, then decided to return and pull in the mounting block. I didn’t even have to review the lesson from the day before, she walked up and parked next to the block, I put the lead around her neck and back to the halter and mounted her riding her at a walk bareback around the pen. She did a super job, but she definitely needs a little more back padding! All in all, she was perfect and we had an outstanding day so far. Another experience of the day was having her first Chiropractic adjustment by Julie Kaufman. Julie found her sciatic nerve was tight in her right rear and her lower neck was out as well as her right leg turned out. She will be back in a month to readjust. This means that she got the remainder of the day off and spent it outside in the round pen and was to have the next day be light too.
Day 5 being her second light day a trip was in order down to the old barn to the mineral trays. I have found that a lot of mustangs arrive liking to chew wood but stop when they nibble at the trays. There is a variety and they have 6 to choose from. She, like the other mustangs, went right for the Detox. Then she tried almost every other offering. When we were done, we left the barn up by the house and walked back down. If it was not so slick out, I might have introduced her to the ponying off the 4 wheeler. Instead, she met a new friend, Violet the pig. Violet also met Red and Indy. She already met Luigi llama and the ewes and their lambs.
Since Mini Mouse needed to have 2 days of light work after her chiropractic adjustment, which meant no riding…I decided to include a little update of today: day 6 (besides I am still working on the photos & captions for this article!) So here we are on day 6 riding her 3rd ride! Riding alone in the round pen at a walk, trot and canter without a buddy horse! She did FANTASTIC! We are just around the corner from our first trail ride!
We have had an exciting 6 days so far of the 83 total days from pick up to competition, we have a lot of ground to cover. What is most important is NOT the competition but helping our horse adjust to life as a human companion! We are very proud of the horses and although right now Mouse is doing very well, the others really are not far behind her; she is just right now being the training ambassador for them! If you are interested in following the adventures of these fine horses visit my Facebook page: Tracy@Tracy-Porter.net, we will have daily updates. We will also have them at the Illinois Horse Fair in Springfield, IL they will have 30 days of training at that time! For upcoming clinics, lesson or training information visit www.Tracy-Porter.net or call 608-921-5432 to schedule a lesson or clinic at our facility or yours!
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