When wild horses heal

It’s 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Mesa County Fairgrounds in a covered, but open-sided arena where a brisk, teasing breeze can capture a touch of winter and blow through. Mustangs gathered in July and August from northwestern Colorado’s Piceance Basin, mostly blacks, bays and sorrels, chew on hay in a linear block of heavy-duty square pens set up in the center of the arena. Visitors are kept back approximately 15 feet from the pens by a barrier rope that helps the horses maintain a calmer space. Fresh from a holding facility in Axtell, Utah, the horses are still in flight-or-fight mode and occasionally bolt inside the pens, hooves clanging against the steel pipes and kicking sand into watering tubs. A fine dust from the stirred arena sand hangs in the morning light as the horses settle again to snatch a bite of hay.

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Piceance Mustangs is the first group to arrive with a booth. They set up near the chilly arena entry where they can peddle barbed wire wreaths, photos of Piceance mustangs taken by members, and jewelry made from tiny, delicate clockwork interiors that flicker as jeweled memories. Proceeds from all items sold will go for range improvement on the Piceance/East Douglas Horse Management Area west of Meeker.

Kathy Degonia, president of Piceance Mustangs, ramrods this adoption event with her board, organizing volunteers, helping dictate where other groups like Friends of the Mustangs – a similar group that helps BLM manage the Bookcliff mustangs; Grand Valley Rescue; and the Meeker Mustang Makeover can park their tables and promote mustang adoption. Robyn Blackwood, vice president of the Meeker Makeover, unfurls a brightly colored tablecloth and efficiently plops out glittering red foil-wrapped paperweights, meticulously painted gray rocks with the Meeker Mustang Makeover “MMM” scrolled in gold letters to pin down the Makeover’s information fliers. She hangs the Makeover banner directly behind the table where it is backlit by the sun and gets ready to call on passers-by to consider bidding on trained mustangs from the Makeover event, too, or sign up to compete as a trainer in the youth in-hand yearling division or the undersaddle competition. Baylor Carstens, 11, steps up and writes her name on the list for the Makeover to train a yearling.

The groups lining up with the sun are clearly veterans of public events. They’ve brought everything from bowls of candy to pots of chili and sticky lemon bars to attract and hold visitors’ attention long enough to establish a connection, spin a story or two about mustangs and relate why mustangs are terrific horses.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a long table set up with workers posted to help potential mustang adopters fill out the paperwork. West of the table is an “approval” trailer where adopters go for final authority to gain a temporary title to a mustang if they win their bids. A couple of armed BLM rangers with kevlar vests linger almost unnoticed at either end of the arena.

Lexi Bingham, 12 going on 13 (her birthday was Sunday), arrived early, motoring deftly through the mud at the entry gate where volunteers barely have enough time to scatter dry sawdust to help absorb water saturating the adopter pathway. Lexi is flanked by Mandy, her mother, who occasionally has to “shoulder-in” and push Lexi’s heavy motorized wheelchair out of patches of soft sand.

Lexi has come to adopt — not just any mustang, but a special red filly with flashy “chrome” legs and a blaze face. Lexi first saw the filly when she was photographing wild horses in the Sand Wash Basin. Then only two weeks old, the filly stopped and looked right into the camera. She flicked her ears, curious and unafraid. Then she disappeared, running after the other horses, and Lexi was left with an unbreakable, magic bond. The filly was gathered a year later in the Sand Wash BLM roundup and is now the only Sand Wash mustang at this event for Piceance/East Douglas horses.

Now, Lexi has to compete against other adopters at the Grand Junction event. Her bid is not a sure thing. This filly, named “Tuesday,” is the daughter of “Ruby” and “Snip” — famously named by Sand Wash mustang advocates who follow, name and record information about the horses and post it on social media. Snip, a son of Picasso — the most famous of all Sand Wash horses — recently went for $16,000 in fierce online bidding, most occurring within the last 30 minutes of the event. Sanctuaries often bid against each other for a chance at these named horses, particularly those related to Picasso, that can bring in significant funding for their non-profits through promotional letters.

The horses in the pens are identified by number, not by name. This sunset colored filly’s red tag is #8785.

Lexi has been saving her money for a chance at Tuesday for a while, with full knowledge she might not have a reasonable chance at her. But she persisted in the dream. In lieu of gifts from her friends and family, according to her mother, she asked for cold, hard cash that she could pair with her many weeks of savings. She may have to outbid mustang sanctuaries and a host of other adopters, some who prefer chestnuts over blacks, some who prefer tall and lanky over short and stout, and some who prefer mares over geldings. Tuesday is the only female mustang at the event and before Lexi can even write in a bid, several adopters step up to ask about her.

Adopters begin to flood the building.

Among them, and allegedly just here to watch, is George Brauneis, wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the freeze brand of his first mustang, “Tahotay.” He points to his chest and says, “This is the one who started it all!” “All” encompasses far more than just his own obsessive journey with mustangs that he joked with Meeker Mustang 2022 Champion, Eric Pflueger, has cost him a cool $400,000 in land, house and facilities; it also is about a Piceance mustang, Kiss, owned by his friend, KC Davis, who later became the impetus for the Montrose Trainer Incentive Program (TIP) resulting in the adoptions of hundreds of horses. Tahotay was not from the Piceance but from the Divide Basin in Wyoming. KC’s horse was adopted from the Piceance herd. Together, they decided to compete in a mustang makeover challenge on the front range. KC was on her mustang and riding within five days. George began a dance with Tahotay that lasted five weeks before he could think about getting on. KC ranked well in the challenge, but not quite making the top 10 — not bad for a first-timer. Brauneis didn’t fare so well in the competition. Neither he nor Tahotay were ready, but his life was changed forever.

Brauneis started Eagles and Wild Horses Ranch in Eckert, Colorado, and now is a mustang gentler and youth mentor at Grand Valley Horse Rescue. He says with a grin, “Rescue a mustang; rescue a kid.” He can’t help himself. He intends to bid on a petite black in pen #5 that he thinks would make a great pony club horse at 13 hands. He partners with Grand Valley Rescue frequently to make sure kids can get their hands on gymkhana ready mustangs.

He keeps an eye cocked at pen #5 where Tuesday is bunched with three geldings. If someone starts to ask about #8785, and express interest, he intends to divert them offering up excuses why others are better.

He emphasizes that he would choose a Piceance mustang generally over other HMAs and explains why: “The ranchers in the Piceance managed those horses. They turned stallions out, and then gathered them annually, selecting for the best.” Brauneis believes that’s why the willing disposition of these horses tends to be calmer. None have much “chrome,” meaning white legs, or white on their face or other areas of the body common to Paints and Appaloosas.

It’s deliberate management on the part of the ranchers, Bruneis asserts. Ranchers did not want color in the horses because it was often an indicator of other negative traits, leading to eye and skin problems. “I don’t ride color,” Bruneis said. “Give me a solid-colored Piceance horse any day.”

Behind Brauneis, Lexi sits quietly, keeping company with Tuesday as the filly quietly munches hay in the pen in the distance. Once in a while, the horses shy from the growing crowd and bolt to a far corner of the little pen where they stand on alert, watching the crowd pass by.

Another bidder saunters by, taking notes on his choices. Charles Crawford, from Glade Park, is particularly interested in these Piceance mustangs. He’s ridden and owned domestic bred horses, but after working with mustangs, prefers their hardy endurance and their easy keeping abilities. “The Piceance horses are easy to work and I prefer them because they don’t need the topshelf (expensive alfalfa) hay to thrive. They do well in a desert like Glade Park.”

Crawford’s focus is far deeper than recreation. He is particularly interested because he credits horses for helping him maintain his mobility. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) 20 years ago, Crawford says, “Copaxone [medication] is great – horses are better.”

He intends to bid on several horses and looks solidly on #8785 for a while, considering a bid there, and then walks on. His wife waves to him from the far side of the arena where she is looking at other prospects in other pens with a cluster of excited children near her.

Friday is for looking. Saturday is for bidding.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, a gray day with no sun and a chilly breeze, the bidding officially opens. Kyle Arnold, assistant field manager in the White River BLM office that manages the Piceance/East Douglas herd, oversees Pen #5. He positions the clipboard for #8785, directly in front of Lexi’s wheelchair. The young woman is bundled from toes to ears, with very little skin exposed. It is a cold, bone-biting day. Mandy Bingham reaches out and lifts the clipboard so that her daughter can write down the bid, but her hands are too cold. She can’t hold the pen steady enough to write out the numbers. Bingham writes it out. $125. The minimum bid.

Lexi backs up to allow others to lift the clipboard and bid. “We’ll bid $25 more every time somebody else bids. Hopefully, we’ll get her,” she says. She leans over and looks down the rope at the long lines of bidders ready to write down bids on the 33 clip boards, one for each horse, hanging from the rope. It will be a long 30 minutes.

Clinics and demonstrations, organized by Cindy Day of Piceance Mustangs, have been going on in a round pen in the northwest corner of the arena. Paige Burnham, who competed in the first Meeker Mustang Makeover is there demonstrating clicker training with one of her mustangs. Since the Makeover four years ago, she has trained an additional 17 mustangs. Montrose TIP trainers, primarily youth, are there to show off their skills. Eric Pfluegar, the Meeker Makeover 2022 Champion will demonstrate the initial training of previously unhandled mustangs after the bidding ends while paperwork is finalized. Cindy Day knows it isn’t about just attracting buyers. New owners have to be educated, too. Some prospective owners need to understand, these aren’t just good horses, “They are great horses.”

Just as importantly, Piceance Mustang members often adopt. Linda Stewart, a Piceance volunteer and board member, pauses to show videos to other volunteers of the lone mustang orphan she adopted during the Piceance gather. The foal is chasing and playing with a 3-year-old border collie. On the other side of the fence in the video is a trained mare Stewart adopted from an auction at the Meeker Mustang Makeover this past August for her grandkids. The mare was trained by a teenager, Clay Allred, from Rangely.

Kathy Degonia fostered and adopted a gray mare and foal after the Piceance gather, keeping them out of holding where the foal could thrive. The foal’s unusual hourglass-patterned, gray face is featured on many Piceance Mustangs photos for sale in the booth. Day, along with other volunteers, walks around the pens watching the clipboards that have no bids so that she can call potential adopters. If they don’t come through, then she will adopt. Cindy becomes intense and focused when bidding accelerates for some horses and is non-existent for others. No horse is going back to holding. Not on her watch. Montrose TIP has agreed to take some of the leftovers, if there are any, and some other sanctuary groups may offer to take horses.

Bidders crouch down, looking through the heavy pipes at the horses, searching for limiting flaws, like a hoof out of shape, a twisted hock or a tell-tale bump that might signal a deeper problem like a bowed tendon. They stand up and try to get a sense of eye health, difficult at 20 to 30 feet away. They watch behavior: is the horse aggressive to others, or too timid, too fearful? Is it curious and teachable? The bidders move back and forth, some bidding on several horses. If they can’t get the one they want, they’ll have a chance at a second choice. By 10:30, when bidding is scheduled to close, there is an announcement.

A BLM spokesperson announces bidding will remain open for those horses with competition going until the last bid stands unchallenged. Kyle Arnold snatches #8785 clipboard, the first to come off the rope and hands it to Lexi. “You own a horse.”

He has a grin on his face. So does his boss, Bill Mills, and his colleague, Tyrell Turner. Barred by ethics guidelines, they are prohibited from interfering, but it didn’t stop them from rooting for Lexi and Tuesday.

A host of volunteers cluster around Lexi to congratulate her and take pictures. They are people offering to train the filly for her, people who just might have accidentally blocked a bidder or two, or people who diverted bidders to other horses, convincing them of the magic that lived in other pens. Several people quietly pooled money ready to step up and bid for her if Lexi hit her limit.

There is only one bid on the #8785 clipboard. $125.

As George Brauneis says, “The mustang family rallied.”

Lexi has a fan club of “mustang angels.” When asked what she intended to do with the filly, she wants “to train her for a cart horse.” She smiles and adds, “Perhaps she can be a 4-H project horse. But I have to talk to Mom about that first.”

Lexi shows Boer goats and has liberty trained a couple of them. She used to ride her mother’s horse before the faithful old friend had to be put down. Her custom made saddle with a high back is broken, but will be fixed. Someday, it may rest on Tuesday’s back. She appreciates the offers of help from her fans, but Tuesday is now hers, framed with a lot of dreams.

And she is not the only adopter with mustang dreams.

All of the 33 Piceance mustangs were adopted this past Saturday by more than 20 adopters. Some adopters are taking home several for sanctuaries, for therapy groups, for riding clubs, for ranch horses and for personal use. None are going back to holding facilities in Axtell, Utah.

By Kathleen Kelley

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Special to the Herald Times