Breakfast With Mama - part 3

By Kathy Johnson, Executive Director, MHP

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Unraveling Wind Knots

I worked with Mama the next day on haltering. She freaked out every time the top strap flapped behind her ears. I believe she had been roped and feared the tightening of the noose. Oddly enough, she had learned to accept my hand going behind her ears. She let me push the crownpiece backward. I went in search of a safety halter that snapped at the bottom instead of buckling on the top. Mama put her head through the loop and buried her face in the grain. I pushed the crownpiece over her ears and ever so, quietly so, reached under her jaw and snapped the halter on. The deal was sealed. Then Mama did something I had never seen before. She backed up quickly. She braced her front legs and stuck her head as far out in front of her as could, as if trying to separate the halter from the rest of her. She gave her head a shake. When the halter did not fall off, she made a noise I have never heard from a horse. It was part groan, part squeal, part sigh. It sounded human. It sounded like a disgusted teenage girl saying, "EWWWWW!"

I laughed. I laughed so hard I had to sit down. Then, I cried. I cried because Mama's plaintive cry signified the end of her freedom. She was no longer a feral horse but a tame horse, unwillingly accepting the trappings of civilization.

Was this a horse who should ever wear a saddle? Should she ever be ridden? No doubt, she was a wild child of nature. Until man stepped in with his brands and his ropes and trucks and his slaughterhouses, she was joyfully free. Was she meant to always run wild?

Leo Tolstoy wrote, "As long as there slaughterhouses, there will always be battlefields." To me, this meant that the same aspect of humankind that slaughters animals encompasses a callous indifference that allows us to kill our fellow man in wars. Slaughterhouses and battlefields disregard the sanctity of life. As war is hell for humans, so slaughterhouses are for horses. By-products of the fallen economy, horses, once assets, became liabilities. Mama was sold down the river for the slightest profit. She was pulled from the wild and enslaved as a consumable asset. As a feral horse off the range, she was an anachronistic relic of our great western past, a free and untamed spirit. When she unloaded at Medicine Horse, she landed in purgatory, neither heaven nor hell. We weren't going to kill her, but we couldn't send her back to the range to live wild.

I felt a tremendous responsibility. I didn't know if I was up to the task. When people took a horse into captivity and subjected the horse to human-imposed structures and dangers, we became responsible for keeping the horse safe. In order to keep Mama safe around humans, I had to train her in the basics. She needed to stand to be touched. She need to learn to lead, tie, be groomed, have her feet picked up, and to get the knots out of her mane. If she had a medical emergency we needed to be able to touch her to treat her. No longer free roaming, she needed her feet cared for. In a densely populated stable, she required shots and worming.

So, these became my goals and hopefully my gifts , to give Mama the skills she needed to stay safe, healthy and alive in the human's world. She never needed to go back to the slaughter truck because she couldn't be caught. Whether or not she should wear a saddle or be ridden? The possibility or impossibility was so far away, I put it aside.

With all of the goals I needed to reach with Mama, for some strange reason, I chose the most cosmetic first. I really wanted to get those knots out of her mane. While she ate out of her feed bucket, I reached under her mane and scratched. She didn't mind but she didn't seem to enjoy it as some horses do. I got a hold of one of the knots, a giant clump the size of an apple. I stuck my fingers in and pulled. Nothing moved. I was a little afraid I would get my hand stuck in her mane, she would set back and I would be stuck to her, pulled through the fence and dragged. I knew I could reach through and snip the knots out with scissors. But she has a pretty mane. I thought of Samson and Delilah, and figured that Mama needed every power she might have, however she derived it. Finally, the long, flowing mane was another symbol of her mustang life. I would not cut the knots out.

I decided on another method. I thought perhaps some "Product" might be in order. No way could I spray her with anything from a bottle. But I wanted something with silicon that might help slide through the mane. So I mixed up a conditioner and a detangler, poured a big glop in my hand and reached for mane again.

Mama smelled it and blasted away, smashing my thumb against the rail. I was reminded once again how much I needed to respect her power and her fear. She curled her lip back in the flehmen response. She hated the smell, but she came back for the grain. As soon as I put the product away, Mama let me touch her mane. I started with one of the longest strands, from the bottom. I pulled the mane through the rail so I could work.

Parts of the mane were corded, twisted and almost braided. Each cord was like the ring of tree, giving an inside look at her history. Sand fell away as the cords loosened. I imagined Mama in the desert, feeling the oncoming wind, seeing a billowing brown cloud approaching. She turned her tail to a sand storm, buffeted by saltating pellets of stinging sand, no shelter except to circle with the other horses, staying close together so that their tender skin was not sandblasted. The wind, like a loom, spun through each strand of mane, weaving them together in an intricate pattern, everything coated by sand. When the storm blew through, the horses were blanketed in sand. They shook the loose sand away, but they could not shake away the windknots in their manes. So many knots, so many sand storms.

I felt the grit and sand in my fingers as I untwisted and unbraided. Some cords spun one way, some another. Some went half way up twisted clockwise, then spun counterclockwise. Finally, one large cord separated from the mass, and part of her mane fell all the way past her shoulder. There would be months of work to unravel the mane as I would eventually have to be in the stall with her. I would take the time it needed. I was happy I had not cut it. In retrospect, choosing her mane to work on was the best place to start. I wasn't working her or touching her or bothering her while she ate, but we spent a lot of time together, untangling and unweaving.

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