Outside the BLM Wild Horse Corral

Burns, Oregon

So, this is the closest I have come to the wild horses in Oregon so far. And I didn't even see one, just this statue. We had pulled right up to the gate of the wild horse management area to look for a geocache. Funny thing was, for some odd reason I did not have the coordinates to this one loaded in either GPS. I had the hints printed out, though, and by using the hint, and searching for a good twenty minutes, I was finally able to find it. Yeah!

This reminded me, though, of my fervent wish to get closer to the mustangs that live in this area. Mustangs are near and dear to my heart - just listen to the tribute poem posted at the bottom of this blog - and I've been following their management by the BLM for over two decades. Lately, the management of the mustangs have been facing some dire issues. The recession has hit the horse market fairly hard on the bottom side. The high priced luxury horses are still moving, but the low end has suffered from the economic crisis coupled with the end of horse slaughter in two big markets - California and Texas. The market is saturated with broke down, outlaw, and cull horses no one can sell, and the people who would buy these horses, the cheap horses, are also the ones who would adopt the mustangs. There are 30,000 mustangs sitting in boarding stables across the country that cannot be adopted out, and there was talk of euthanizing ALL of them until our new horse hero emerged. This is an issue that strongly speaks to me, and I wish I was in the position to do something about it.

On my "Bucket List", there is only one thing - to ride with the wild horses. Someday I will do it. I will saddle up a trusty mount, ride out to one of their ranges, find a herd, and ride among them. The gloriflying moment of my life will come when I am galloping alongside them, hair flying, lifting up my arms to God, in unison heart and soul with these creatures that have spoken so much to the depths of my heart. I want there to still be some wildness left on this earth, some place where horses still run free, and I want this for America, for America to keep her wild horses.

On our trip, we passed by three wild horse management facilities. This one in Burns is an area they bring them to when they are rounded up to prepare them for adoption. Some, like the ones we passed in Nevada, are actually protected ranges for them to live on. Someday, I would like to adopt my own wild horse, but this will have to wait until I have a proper enclosure and time to spend working on gentling it. These are the dreams I have in my life, dreams of wild horses and thundering hooves, and a gentleness inside a fierce and free nature. I hope that someday these dreams do come true.