SponsorshipHorses

Frosty and Prairie Lark by Dayton O Hyde.

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The other day I passed through Chilson Canyon, the lonely part of the sanctuary where I used to batch when first I came here seventeen years ago. Not much remains of my simple habitation except an old pump house and a few Russian olive trees and lilacs I planted. There too is the large corral I built to unload wild horses off Bureau of Land Management trucks. Most likely they will be there for the next hundred years, for I built them to hold hundreds of frightened wild horses that would look for a weak spot to escape. It was a tough place to live since I had to haul my water from twenty miles away, and when the Cheyenne River was up, I had to drive for an hour to reach the rest of the sanctuary. I had adopted Frosty and Prairie Lark personally, more in need of someone to talk to than horses to ride. If they now have bad habits such as opening gates and letting their friends into the haystacks at night I have only myself to blame, for I spoiled them badly. I had only to shout for them and they would come running down off the ridges for a feed of oats. I liked to think they had an affection for me but am wise enough now to know it was the feed bucket they were attached to.

Frosty and Lark never stray far from where I now live, and are always listening for the sound of my truck or the sight of me doing my daily chores. Some people claim they always know where I am working for Lark and Frosty point to me as the needle of a compass points to magnetic north.

I admit to being lonely sometimes and seek them out amongst the herds of other wild horses to stand with them scratching their itchy spots. Their companions see us together and have accepted me into the herd. Lark and Frosty have great grandchildren running wild and free here, and I like to think they will live on forever. Frosty is now white as alabaster, and stands out like a pearl in moonlight. Lark will ever be black in winter, and a blue roan when she sheds off every Spring.

Medicine Hattie

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Since the time I wrote about Medicine Hattie in an article for Highlights for Children, the white mare with medicine hat markings has been a favorite of children who come here expecting to see her. Hattie has a way of never staying long in one place. One afternoon she will be grazing quietly beside the tourist road, the next morning she will be miles away, blending with the clouds on the highest ridge top, and those who planned their vacation around coming to see the mare will go away disappointed. She is as restless and unpredictable as the Spring breeze. And then, quite suddenly, there she is again, as though she had not been away.

Painted Desert

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In order to limit the numbers of foals that are born to the wild herd, and thus having too many horses and too little grass, we take the stallions in to winter in special pastures where they become accustomed to humans. It is important that we halter-break each stallion so that they can be caught up on the range and led away from the mares. We never have to worry about Painted Desert. In the Spring, a month before the breeding season, he can be seen pacing the fence of the stallion pasture, wanting to get back with the girls. In the fall he is worn out with activity and comes in on his own, begging to be given a vacation.

He is a kind and gentle animal who can be fierce with rival stallions but is apt to stick his head in the door of a tour bus to greet the people. He looks at every face as though trying to locate someone he recognizes. Painted Desert, with his sorrel and white coat is a beautiful animal and his foals are much in demand by those who take the tour and see them.

Prairie Lonesome
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Once last year I heard the thunder of a hundred hooves, saw summer dust billowing above the pines as wild horses raced each other for first place at the water hole along the Cheyenne River. I watched them from a grove of giant cottonwoods and was glad for their freedom here on the sanctuary.

For an instant, however, I froze. Prairie Lark, who usually led them was not to be seen. Fearing the worst, I hurried up the ridge looking for the old blue roan mare who had been one of my favorites.

Suddenly, I saw movement-the flick of a horse’s tail against a pester of flies. Prairie Lark stood in the shade of a giant juniper, and stretched out at her feet was a lovely black and white foal, It was my first glimpse of the pretty filly we now call Prairie Lonesome. The old mare nudged the baby to its feet and with wobbly uncertain legs it chased after its mother. Prairie Lonesome is now a yearling and is one of the handful of horses we designate as sponsorship horses.

Champagne Lady

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When I first saw the Champagne filly she was a jug bellied little orphan whose old and weak mother had been killed by a mountain lion. My friend Susan saw her first and came running to tell me she had seen a strange yellow mustard baby with green eyes. We brought this little animal in to the corrals, where we happened to have a wild mare that had lost her foal. Champagne Lady lost no time in finding the mare’s source of milk, stubbornly ignoring the mare’s kicks, until the old mustang mare gave up and let her suck. Generally, I let wild horses be wild, but because her champagne color made the filly a genetic rarity, we kept her in the corrals with her foster mother until the little lady’s coat shone with health and she had caught up in size with the other foals. She is mature now and is as beautiful as any animal in the herd. Often I see Champagne Lady running wild across the prairie, able to leave her friends in the dust. In those moments it seems inconceivable that she would let me stroke her glistening neck and even scratch her ears. But when I come bumping and rattling across the prairie in my old pick-up truck and call her name, she leaves the rest of the herd behind to gallop to me, putting her head in the open window on the truck to search my pockets for shards of grain. One day soon she will have a baby of her own, and we hope and pray that she will give us another little champagne foal.

Champagne Lady