Source: WRIC.com
“They’re really just settling in, healing…”
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LOUISA VA – Wild horses with ties to President Teddy Roosevelt’s ranching days in North Dakota are now calling Virginia home.
These mustangs were part of a September roundup at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It thinned out the herd, but left the wild horses with an uncertain future.
Many faced slaughter, so Mustang Legacy Preservation stepped in, raising money to buy 36 horses from the auction and transporting 35 of them for a fresh start — the last few arriving in the early morning hours of October 10.
Legacy rescued its first mustang in 2009, opened the preservation about a year ago and has now seen about 80 wild horses come through the gates.
Trainer Christina Flint says getting each one used to a gentle stroke and a soft voice is step number one.
“They’re really just settling in, healing. We’re not pushing them, we’re not asking them to do a lot right now.”
Some were injured in the roundup and at the auction. That hurt will heal, but their spirit will take more time.
“We work with them, their personality and we let them choose the right answer and it really becomes a peaceful easy process when you’re willing to take the time.”
Flint expects some of the youngest to have a saddle on them within weeks, but others could take a year or more – or never.
The horses that aren’t adopted will stay to be a part of community outreach programs.
“We train horses but we don’t have a training focus, we have an education focus, educating people about the horses.”
Legacy is sharing updates about the horses on its Facebook page.
Related Articles
- Wild horses from US national park to be sold (horsetalk.co.nz)
Categories: Equine Rescue, Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
A huge THANK YOU to Mustang Legacy Preservation and the many others who have made ths possible! To see these magnificent animals being given a second chance is absoutely wonderful. It will probably take some time for many to heal and adjust to their new surrondings, but their lives have been spared, with which I’m truly thankful.
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Virginia is a big change in terms of climate, but I am very glad that these horses are safe and were able to move together as a herd. People who don’t know horses do not understand how important these social bonds are.
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Very Nice.
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What a wonderful ending!
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So proud of legacy preservation. These wild horses can be protected for years to come. It is time to help the others that are stuck in huge pens waisting their lack of freedom away because of government burecracy and damage to our wild herds. It is time to plan where we will take many of our wild horses in bondage. Let them be free. We must plan areas where they will live. Not in temporary holding pens. We as wild horse advocates must stand and help our wild horses now. The govt has destroyed the essence of freedom. We are ready to place them back in the wild. Those of u working for Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, horse advocacy programs, put your best thoughts forward and let us plan our method of saving our wild horses. Really it is up to all of us. The government is BROKE. Lets do it now.
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Go to article new mexico weighs horse slaughter on PBS.com. This article is repulsive, im sorry but that was straight from the dark unbelly of our industry trying to use public broadcast tv to sell its bull! What a onesided piece of pro slaughter propaganda. Santos lies so much, he cant recall each interview, remember Every time he got a phone call it waz supposedly abusive, accusatory, rude animal activists, now he claims nice people who are confused contact him, but after he politelt explains what they dont “understand” (brainwashing) then they are all fine with what hes gonna do ??!#+ //#/_&()6578999??!! Exactly….many things i actually cannot type came mind, you get the point!
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Gah, that slaughterhouse looks like a torture chamber. Just imagine a horse of old noble bloodlines being killed by an ex-con or an uneducated slob.
Interestingly, I have been doing some reading about horse breeds and came across this little gem about overbreeding of Arabian horses. We’ve turned America into the most shallow, greedy country on the planet. Interestingly, Arabians were bred to require less water and food to live in desert conditions.
Overbreeding of horses is the problem.
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“In the 1980s, Arabians became a popular status symbol and were marketed similarly to fine art. Some individuals also used horses as a tax shelter. Prices skyrocketed, especially in the United States, with a record-setting public auction price for a mare named NH Love Potion, who sold for $2.55 million in 1984, and the largest syndication in history for an Arabian stallion, Padron, at $11,000,000. The potential for profit led to over-breeding of the Arabian. When the Tax Reform Act of 1986 closed the tax-sheltering “passive investment” loophole, limiting the use of horse farms as tax shelters, the Arabian market was particularly vulnerable due to over-saturation and artificially inflated prices, and it collapsed, forcing many breeders into bankruptcy and sending many purebred Arabians to slaughter. Prices recovered slowly, with many breeders moving away from producing “living art” and towards a horse more suitable for amateur owners and many riding disciplines. By 2003, a survey found that 67% of purebred Arabian horses in America are owned for recreational riding purposes. As of 2013, there are more than 660,000 Arabians that have been registered in the United States, and the US has the largest number of Arabians of any nation in the world.” – source: Wikipedia
We suck!
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