01/27/2025
Hi everyone! Meet “Esme”, 2009 Oregon Mustang Mare. Today (01/26/25 - I’m a few hours late on posting this) is her two year anniversary of being here on our property (aka her gotcha day or now the day we will celebrate her bday 😉). Let’s talk about Esme and her story, it’s quite interesting, really.
Esme was rescued from the kill pen in January 2023 by a dear friend of mine. She was said to be 6 years old (right? I know what you’re thinking. The math already isn’t mathing - we will get to that 🤔) and wild as all get out. Although, she came to use with a halter already on. My friend had full intentions of working with this mustang and making it her new project. Well, months go by, life gets in the way, the realization of how feral this mustang really was started to set in. She needed help. She started to feel as if she was in over her head. I offered to take the mustang off her hands (because we all know Mikenzie needs more mustangs 😉) and make her my own project (on top of the million project horses I already had lol 🙃).
At this point, she had already been here 6 months and all we had accomplished was a few round penning sessions and a few pets with the stick and string. She was extremely timid and reactive. I decided since she was now mine, I would just turn her out with my other mustang projects and see how she socializes with them. Well, that didn’t go well. They were terrible to her, she didn’t even try to stick up for herself. Why was she so shut down? I needed a new plan. I put her in a bigger turnout with an older gelding, two of my broke mustangs mares, and a yearling that had also came from the same kill pen. They all coexisted together. It was great! I was in no rush to start working with her again. One, I had so many other horses to prioritize working with and two I thought she needed more time, and space to decompress. Months go by, we try to get on her good side, gain her trust. She was at least interested in us enough to take treats from our hands, which was a good start.
This fall I decided it’s time to stop just letting her be, we needed to get her going and figure out why she’s so distant from everyone and everything. We put her through my c**t starting clinic series. We started with round penning and teaching her to give us two eyes and to follow us around at liberty. She was great! Such a quick learner. Then we began working on approach and retreat. Trying to make contact with her. At last, we’re able to pet her shoulders and hang out with her! Touching her face was completely out of the question. Now I’m starting to wonder how in the world are we going to get this old halter off her face and place a rope halter on for us to be able to start her groundwork?! Try after try, I decided roping her was the only option.
It was a huge risk to take. Once you rope a horse someone has to either A) get close enough to get that old halter off and the new one on or b at the very least get the rope back off if the mission goes south. As soon as I got the rope out she changed her attitude. I could tell, It was no more Mr Nice Guy. She became very alert and reactive. Once I actually got her roped she LOST HER MIND. Bucking, striking, rearing. I think she even flipped over backwards once. It was then I realized this was NOT her first time having a rope around her neck. She was familiar with this particular situation and apparently extremely bitter about it. She knew how to escape that type of pressure. She knew my weak spots. She drug me around that pen for hours. I finally get close enough to also clip a lead rope to the old halter she still had hanging off her face to get more leverage. FINALLY, after hours of fighting she submits. We replaced her old halter with a rope halter and began her ground work.
This was a whole new world for her. You could tell she was so used to getting away from pressure and with the new rope halter with the knots on the nose band to discourage “leaning” against my tools, she was defeated. We began desensitizing her, which she needed ALOT of. We taught her tons of ground working exercises. We had a decent enough handle on her we moved her into a stall so we could continue to work with her.
Although, over the last 3 months we had been making so much progress with her, I really started to ponder as to why she is the way she is. If she truly is only 8yrs old, why is she giving us this much of a hard time?! Has she experienced so much trauma in her past or were they wrong about her age? Or BOTH?! I started to do some digging. Before you know it, I’m able to find her actual title work. It reads 2009. I was completely shocked! She’s DOUBLE the age they had listed her at. It also had the previous owners information listed. I decided I would reach out. I wanted to know more.
The lady was kind enough to get back to me. She informed me that yes she was the previous owner of Esme. She had adopted her in 2016 and had named her “Wild Rose”. She had experience with raising and starting domestic c**ts in the past and wanted to take a shot at gentling a mustang. The lady explained she realized pretty quickly that mustangs and domestics are nothing alike and that she was in over her head. She did mention there was negative roping incident that had occurred. A series of events take place and Esme is rehomed to a gentlemen that had planned to at least attempt to gentle her. Last she knew that’s where she still was today. I did inform the previous owner that Esme had ended up in a kill pen in 2023. She was pretty upset. She had already felt like she had failed her as an owner. So to hear she had been home hoping and almost ended up dead for slaughter was devastating.
I ensured the previous owner that Esme would be safe with me for the rest of her days. There’s no way I could let her go after knowing what I know about her past. She deserves a soft place to land. My long term goal for her is to be ridable. My short term goal for her is to have a normal life. Currently she still has so much anxiety which all makes much more sense now knowing more about her past on top of the fact she is actually 16 years old vs 8 years old.
If you made it this far into Esme’s story, thank you. I enjoy educating people about mustangs and if sharing her story can help someone in their horse journey, that’s all I can hope for. Mustangs are magnificent creatures and they all deserve a loving home and a chance. With that being said, adopting one alone isn’t enough to “save their life”. People must understand the differences they have compared to domestics and the lifelong commitment that comes with adopting one. If you don’t have the experience yourself or the financial stability to find someone who does have the appropriate experience with mustangs, don’t adopt them. A few things I’ve noticed over the last 10 years I’ve been working with the mustangs, they aren’t near as forgiving as domestics and once they’ve been started wrong it’s hard (not impossible) to undo what’s been done.
Now I don’t want to make adopting mustangs sound so negative but a reality check is necessary. There are tons of pros to adopting them! They are some hardy creatures. Real easy keepers, sure footed, easy to maintain and loyal. They have a natural curiosity. Most of them are basically XXL puppy dogs. They are FULL of personality. We have mustangs we show with, barrel race, pole bending, cowboy mounted shooting, obstacles, jumping, and trail rides. We have several in our lesson program! They truly are wonderful and have made a huge impact on my life personally. 💕
So if you have any questions about mustangs or even just wanting to meet some mustangs, reach out to me! I’d be happy to chat and help make mustangs become apart of your life too. As an old friend would say, “Go adopt a living legend today!” - responsibly please! 🙏🏻
- Mustang Mikenzie Horsemanship
