Meet Winnie

Hi. I’m Winnie the Wild Mustang. I was born in 2006 in the Wheeler Pass area of Nevada. For about six months I trotted alongside my mama and then for another six months I ran with the other youngsters in our herd. Most days we covered more than twenty miles foraging for food and looking for water in that dry country.

Winnie the Wild Mustang
Me, Winnie, the wild mustang.

In February of 2007 a big whirlybird copter appeared in the sky over our heads and chased us a long distance to an area of the desert we hadn’t seen before. All of us were very frightened. Then some humans riding on the backs of horses we hadn’t met, forced us into a fenced enclosure. When they closed the gate behind us, all of us thought we would die after sundown. No one got any sleep that night.

To our surprise the humans put hay out for us in the morning and filled up the water troughs, too. Their horse companions didn’t seem afraid of them at all, which we found most curious indeed. Each one of us got squeezed through a chute and after we came out, all of us had funny writing on our necks. Some man poked us while we were in there, too, and wrote something down on a piece of paper.

Later that week we were forced down a longer chute and into a big container on wheels, and we started rolling down the road. All four knees were shaking on every horse there! We’d heard from the head mare at the pass about a place where horses are taken and made into dog food, and that’s where we thought we were going. We travelled a very long distance, and felt some relief when we were unloaded into a big arena and the humans gave us hay and water again. The next day they put us back on the truck and off we went. I can’t remember how many days passed before we arrived at another big arena. At that place they separated us into smaller pens, boys on one side and girls on the other and each of us had to wear a number. There were donkeys there, too, and horses from other places besides Nevada.

Winnie scared and skinny
Here I am scared and skinny.

The next day a crowd of humans came and looked at us and made a lot of noise at a sale called an auction. Then some of my friends were forced to wear halters and ropes before they were taken away in smaller containers. The rest of us were loaded on the big truck before any good-byes could be said. We travelled further down the road, far, far away from where I was born, and again a crowd of humans came to look at us when we stopped. After the noise died down, more of my friends were taken away, but I was loaded back on the truck again, to head further east.

At the last auction, once again not a single person shouted out a price when the auctioneer pointed at me. After the noise died down, I saw a woman with a scraggly brown mane looking at me. Someone next to her said I was a three strike horse, but I didn’t know what that meant. The woman with the brown mane kept staring at me and I got curious about that and looked right back at her. That was the first time I saw Ann. I noticed whenever I looked at her she was looking at me. No one ever did that before. I soon learned she was going to be my new Mom.

This time I didn’t go back into the big truck, I went into one of the little stock trailers and got taken to a farm where they had the best food I’d ever tasted. Twice in a day, I was given a mixture of beet pulp, rice bran, and oats, plus all the hay I could possibly eat and all the water I cared to drink. I wondered if the humans were trying to fatten me like that witch tried to fatten up Gretel’s brother, Hansel, for you-know-what-reason. I didn’t trust those humans, and even though Ann seemed pretty nice, I wasn’t going to let her touch me, no way, no sir!

Winnie with bad skin
Irritation from the halter.

Winnie training on the bridge
Training on the bridge.

Winnie in winter
It was a cold New England Winter!

Ann found out about Lauman Training and ordered a DVD from them called “From Wild to Willing.” Yep, I was as wild as a white-tailed deer back then. Kitty Lauman learned how to gentle mustangs from her grandpa, who tamed a number of them, I’m told. He used a bamboo pole so he could touch them from ten feet away, since it’s impossible to get very close to a wild horse unless it’s in one of those skinny chutes I told you about. Ann searched around for a pole and finally located a fence maker in Massachusetts who sold her one for $8. She touched that pole to my withers and within a week, she worked her way close enough to place her hand there. It didn’t feel bad, and soon I decided I liked it. Ann knew how to scratch me with her fingers just like my mama used to do with her teeth.

After another day or two, I let Ann get close enough to scratch my ears and then she took that awful halter off my face. It had been fastened so tightly to my head that I now had big scrapes on my cheek and jaw. Ann talked softly to me and put ointment on my sores and that made me feel a lot better. I started to like her from that point on.

Before long I was following Ann around and letting her pick up my feet to clean them. We played games in the paddock like “rope” and “flag” and “whoa” or “walk the bridge.”

Ann brought me hot beet pulp twice a day and warm water, too, during the winter months. Brrrrrrrrrr, the winters are much colder and damper in New England than in my native Nevada! Ann put shavings in my run-in stall and liked the fact I never left droppings in my bed.

By the time summer came again, my coat had a new shine to it. I trusted Ann enough to let her sit on my back and we walked around a bit with her on top and me underneath. A woman named Betsy Merritt from Barefoot Performance came every few weeks to trim my feet and suggested Ann teach me to ground drive because I was still too young for riding. I loved it when we would play that driving game on a trail out in the woods! By the time the leaves started to change again, I had been with Ann for a year. One day she brought a horse cart into the ring. I thought she was going to give me a ride, and I started to climb aboard. I soon learned I was supposed to pull her instead!

Training to pull the cart
Trying to ride in the cart I'm supposed to pull.

Now that I’ve gotten to know people, I like them a lot. I also like my animal friends, like rabbits, cats and dogs. One time a bunny got out of the hutch and I made friends with him by touching his nose. Together we ate grain and carrots out of my dish. The barn cats like to climb up my tail and rub my legs, and that’s okay with me; I’m careful not to step on them. The dogs we meet bark at me a lot, but I don’t pay them any mind.

Sometimes the other horses in the barn act like they’re better than me because they’re bigger, or because they have fancy spots or because they’re “registered” (whatever that means). Sometimes they nip at me or try to kick my sides. Mom tells me they’re just jealous because I’m protected by the U.S. Government, which means I’m extra special. She also told me I’m a national treasure and that if anyone forgets that, horse or human, I should remind them.

Winnie smiling
Stud Muffins make me smile.

Ann said she named me after her mother Winnie because it was her mom who brought horses into her life. After she got to know me better, she told me how well the name fit, because I’m courageous and adventurous, too, and I started out poor and ragged, just like my namesake. Like me, she was born on barren land out west, but she trained up nice, and was the first in her family to get an education beyond the eighth grade. She worked her way through college, taught school, and married a career diplomat (Ann’s dad, now 97) who once gave her an Icelandic pony for an anniversary gift! She travelled the whole world before she died in 2001. If Winnie could do all that and journey so far, I figure I can get to California, don’t you?

If I see you in my travels, and you have a treat, you can bet I’ll smile for you. My favorite treats are Stud Muffins, which are “100% handmade with care and devotion.” You can order them online from Stud Muffins Horse Treats.

Hope to see you on my travels west!

Love,
winnie hoof