Horse Lover Read Online Free
been driven.
“But not every wild horse is adoptable. There’s the crippled. The one-eyed. The thin. The shaggy. The old.” He ticked off each description on a finger. “Who wants those horses? Nobody. So the government’s stuck with them. And do they know what to do? Hell, no!” Dayton sliced his hand through the air. “Those horses are warehoused in holding pens where ‘long-term’ turns out to be forever. A lifelong horse prison.”
I knew the BLM gathered horses, though I didn’t know the details of how, and even knew a couple of people who had adopted a wild mustang. But I had never wondered what happened to the extras. The unadoptables. The unloved.
“They’re bored, Alan. So bored they eat each other’s manes and tails. Yeah, that’s the same look I had. Didn’t believe it. So I took a little road trip down to the facility in Mule Shoe, Texas, and I’ll be damned, those animals—the revered icons of the West,” he added with a fist bang on the table, “were stuck in corrals. It’s one big bureaucratic mess where the solution doesn’t fit the problem. What’s more, it’s costing the government $2.65 per head per day to fund this stupidity. Hell, these beautiful animals aren’t meant to live in jail. They’re meant to run on the open prairie, run with the wind whipping through their manes.” His arms spread open like the wings of a large bird. “Sure, they need grass to live on, and grass might be scant, but you know what else they need?” He shifted his legs under his chair and leaned his elbows on the table. “Freedom. They need freedom.”
I felt like I was listening to a John Wayne soliloquy, perched on the edge of my seat, too engrossed to eat the popcorn the waitress had set in the middle of the table. I asked if they were abused, and he waffled. The horses weren’t starved. They had good flesh and nice coats, but they weren’t happy.
“Imagine a hundred professional athletes,” he said, “crowded into a building with no rooms big enough to exercise in. To add to their misery, you tell them they can never get out and run again, they are destined to live in this one cinder block building. No matter what you feed those athletes, they remain downtrodden, frustrated, angry people. Wild horses are born to run across miles of open land, just like athletes. That’s what they do. Over the prairie, across the hills, through canyons, they can track miles and miles each day. So even though they’re being fed and physically cared for, prohibiting them from doing what nature intended could be considered abuse.”
Wild horses couldn’t be slaughtered, that much I knew. Wild Horse Annie had seen to that. Velma B. Johnston made national news for almost two decades starting in the 1950s after driving behind a truck loaded with captured mustangs. She noticed blood dripping onto the highway. Careful not to be seen, she followed the truck to a rendering plant where she watched men unload the horses. A yearling fell and was trampled to death by the other frightened mustangs. The event incited her to launch a grassroots campaign to get Congress to pass legislation protecting the wild horses, which it finally did in the early seventies.
“So what do you propose to do?” I asked.
He swirled his glass as if watching words melt off the ice. In a somber tone he said, “It’s my goal to take these unwanted, unloved horses and put them on good range where they can roam again. Roam and be cared for. Not live in those goddamn foolish feedlots. And we can do it for less than half the cost the government now pays the feedlots.”
Interesting idea, but how did any of this pertain to me? Come on, wild horses? I was a cattle rancher. Yes, I loved my horses. Alongside the soil flowing in my blood was a river of love for my horses. They had been a part of my extended family as much as the cowboys who helped raise me and spent their lifetime on Lazy B. Chico, Little Joe, Saber, Aunt Jemima, Blackberry,
“But not every wild horse is adoptable. There’s the crippled. The one-eyed. The thin. The shaggy. The old.” He ticked off each description on a finger. “Who wants those horses? Nobody. So the government’s stuck with them. And do they know what to do? Hell, no!” Dayton sliced his hand through the air. “Those horses are warehoused in holding pens where ‘long-term’ turns out to be forever. A lifelong horse prison.”
I knew the BLM gathered horses, though I didn’t know the details of how, and even knew a couple of people who had adopted a wild mustang. But I had never wondered what happened to the extras. The unadoptables. The unloved.
“They’re bored, Alan. So bored they eat each other’s manes and tails. Yeah, that’s the same look I had. Didn’t believe it. So I took a little road trip down to the facility in Mule Shoe, Texas, and I’ll be damned, those animals—the revered icons of the West,” he added with a fist bang on the table, “were stuck in corrals. It’s one big bureaucratic mess where the solution doesn’t fit the problem. What’s more, it’s costing the government $2.65 per head per day to fund this stupidity. Hell, these beautiful animals aren’t meant to live in jail. They’re meant to run on the open prairie, run with the wind whipping through their manes.” His arms spread open like the wings of a large bird. “Sure, they need grass to live on, and grass might be scant, but you know what else they need?” He shifted his legs under his chair and leaned his elbows on the table. “Freedom. They need freedom.”
I felt like I was listening to a John Wayne soliloquy, perched on the edge of my seat, too engrossed to eat the popcorn the waitress had set in the middle of the table. I asked if they were abused, and he waffled. The horses weren’t starved. They had good flesh and nice coats, but they weren’t happy.
“Imagine a hundred professional athletes,” he said, “crowded into a building with no rooms big enough to exercise in. To add to their misery, you tell them they can never get out and run again, they are destined to live in this one cinder block building. No matter what you feed those athletes, they remain downtrodden, frustrated, angry people. Wild horses are born to run across miles of open land, just like athletes. That’s what they do. Over the prairie, across the hills, through canyons, they can track miles and miles each day. So even though they’re being fed and physically cared for, prohibiting them from doing what nature intended could be considered abuse.”
Wild horses couldn’t be slaughtered, that much I knew. Wild Horse Annie had seen to that. Velma B. Johnston made national news for almost two decades starting in the 1950s after driving behind a truck loaded with captured mustangs. She noticed blood dripping onto the highway. Careful not to be seen, she followed the truck to a rendering plant where she watched men unload the horses. A yearling fell and was trampled to death by the other frightened mustangs. The event incited her to launch a grassroots campaign to get Congress to pass legislation protecting the wild horses, which it finally did in the early seventies.
“So what do you propose to do?” I asked.
He swirled his glass as if watching words melt off the ice. In a somber tone he said, “It’s my goal to take these unwanted, unloved horses and put them on good range where they can roam again. Roam and be cared for. Not live in those goddamn foolish feedlots. And we can do it for less than half the cost the government now pays the feedlots.”
Interesting idea, but how did any of this pertain to me? Come on, wild horses? I was a cattle rancher. Yes, I loved my horses. Alongside the soil flowing in my blood was a river of love for my horses. They had been a part of my extended family as much as the cowboys who helped raise me and spent their lifetime on Lazy B. Chico, Little Joe, Saber, Aunt Jemima, Blackberry,
Readers choose
Elizabeth Rose
Robert Charles Wilson
Michele Paige Holmes
Chris Lynch
Julia Quinn
Michael Connelly
Alex Lamb
Pat Tucker
Moriah Jovan