This is the real deal. Wild horses. Not those tame ones a few of the western states rent out to stand alongside the road and look wild. These are the real bona-fide dyed-in-the-wool wild horses that belong to the McCullough Peaks wild horse herd. They live outdoors. There is none of this bring them inside to get out of the weather, or wear a blanket to keep flies off of them, stuff going on here. First off, if the stallions let you get close enough to even put a rope on one they’d tear that blanket off before you could say, “Hey! Dammit, that blanket cost 130 bucks”. Plus they’d chase you back to your rig so fast you’d have that embarrassed look on your face that you hope nobody saw.

If you look closely you won’t see any wear marks on them that indicates they wear saddles. Instead you will see all along their sides and legs and sometimes their faces, bite marks. Acres of bite marks. That’s because that’s what they do all day, every day, is have some kind of altercation with the other horses in the herd. If they’re stallions they have them because stallions fight, often, vigorously, and with malice a forethought. That is their job. They have to do it because, just like every pond has to have a bull duck on it, there has to be a dominant, I am the freaking boss here, stallion in the herd.  And since there are at least a half-dozen stallions in this group the fights go on, and on.

Same with the mares except they tend to get upset over more domestic matters. They handle their problems much like the stallion’s. “Get away from my kid, you great stupid cow” which is one of the  worst insults in the horse community. Someone gets kicked in the face after that is tossed out there. Or bitten. Or both. Usually though there is snorting, then swapping ends, then kicking, then biting, just to make sure you got the message. Anyway it leaves marks.

This morning it just felt like the time to interject a little reality back into the system. Wild horses do it for me. Just knowing that Wild Horses, not tame ones, just the real deal are still running loose out there. That feels ok doesn’t it?