About Nevada
Who was Nevada? She was a mustang mare who one day showed up at the barn, and seemed to leave only just as fast but not before I could become attatched. Her main history is unknown up to the point when she was bought from the slaugter house. The lady who bought her soon sold her to the owner of the barn that I was currently visiting daily with a friend who boarded there.
When Nevada arrived at the barn she was foundered and had much difficutly walking. She also had hair missing on her face where the halter had obviously been rubbing for long periods of time. I looked at this rough and somewhat beaten up mare and instantly saw more to her. I spent long periods of time with her in the stall, grooming her, just hanging out with her, and doing anything I really could with her while she was still in her stall.
Anyways, the farrier started healing Nevada's feet and what seemed only to be a few weeks, the farrier said that Nevada was rideable and good to go. My first thought was, 'Wow, that was quick.' Haha, but maybe it was too quick? I didn't know and I didn't ask questions. Well, because Nevada was 'good to go' and the owners of the barn and horse knew that I had a really kind of bonded with her and that she trusted me quite a bit more than a few of the other people, they told me to give her a ride. It sounded like loads of fun and I really wanted to ride her, but something kept telling me, 'No...no.' So I told the owners, 'That I didn't have much time to ride her today.' Which was part true and part lie. I was with my boarding friend and she didn't have much more riding she needed to do with her horse but we could have stayed longer if we wished. Or, at least I think that is how the story went.
Well, that summer I had been working for the owners of the barn as a couselour sort of person with a summer camp/program they sort of ran for most days of different weeks. On every hot day we brought the kids down to the creek to swim to cool off and run some extra energy off right after lunch. Occasionaly, we would bring a couple of well-behaved and calm horses down into the creek with us to have a bit of fun and watch them play in the water by means of pawing at it and soaking everyone around them.
One day, Ms. Kris(one of the owner's) wanted to stay behind and try Nevada out since there wouldn't be kids around. I stayed behind because I didn't really want to go and I wanted to be there when Nevada was first tacked up and ridden. Now, according to the lady who purchased Nevada from the slaughter house, Nevada had been tacked up and ridden like, five miles supposedly. (Once again, I'm not sure about this fact.) Because Nevada had supposedly been ridden before, we weren't as careful as we maybe should have been.
The owner and I tacked her up in an Australian Stock Sattle and tightened the girth. Now, the sattle we were using had a sort of small horn like a western sattle and it had a pair of leg guard something or anothers. (I'll place a picture of it below.) Under the sattle, Nevada showed no signs of being uncomfortable, nervous, or of just not liking it at all. Then, it came down to the bridle. It was an everyday bridle with a simple snaffle bit (I think). It took a couple of minutes and some molasses for her to accept the bit. Now, with the bit in her mouth, she started to kind of wiggle around and jig in place while she was still on the cross ties in the aisle. So, in a way it seemed like she had had a bit in her mouth before but had a bad experience with it maybe? But since we had no solid background on her, we couldn't be sure.
A tug on the reigns and Nevada pulls against Ms. Kris. Another pull and a little nudge and she decides to follow us out to the round pen. Once in the round pen and the little gait is closed, Ms. Kris decides to lunge her(for the first time since she had been there) to get some engery out. Nevada does okay at this for never being taught. Or, she did fine up until the point when the reins came undone and fell down from the saddle; at this point I had never fealt so helpless. The reins got under her foot and pulled on her mouth scaring her half to death. At that point she bulted and wouldn't stop for anything. The reins eventually got up under her front leg to where when she stepped it would pull on her mouth. When she finally stopped she was petrafied and out of breath. The sattle had twisted to be on her side and one of its stirrups fell off, but it wasn't broken.
We took Nevada back into the barn to calm her down a bit, get the bridle fixed, and put the sattle back together. After that, I thought we would just take her on a walk and calm her down, but I thought wrong. Because of all the energy she just ran off, Ms. Kris thought it would be smart to try and ride her now so that she wouldn't be able to pull any tricks or buck her off. Since I was younger than Ms. Kris and I didn't say anything.
The owner went and grabbed her helmet and the mounting block. She set the mounting block down next to Nevada quite loudly to make sure she wasn't afraid of it. Nevada didn't even shudder. Ms. Kris buckled her helmet and got ready to mount. Before she mounted, she had me sort of hold on to the reins and stand in front of Nevada to make sure that she didn't go anywhere. She climbs into the sattle and sits down... As soon as the weight hit her, she reared up and almost came down on top of me and the only thing I could do was let go of the rains and hop aside. As soon as I was out of the way, she found her way into the center of the pen and started to buck and buck until the final point when the owner finally decided to let go. Right when Ms. Kris hit the ground and was for surely off of her, Nevada stopped bucking and acted like nothing ever happened.
Ms. Kris, unfortunately had hit her face against the ground which happened to be small white rocks. When she got up her cheek was already swollen and it had a lot of scratches on it from the rocks.
Moments later, her husband(the other owner, Eric) came back from the creek with the kids. When he saw what happened to Ms. Kris he brought her inside, got her some ice to put on her face and then demaned the story. After the story was told, he had made up his mind, Nevada was going to be gone, sold, given away, he didn't care.
Of course this wasn't the happiest news I had heard all day. So, I told my two friend who also worked there the story while the helped me untack her and put her back in the stall that she was in before. To calm Nevada down, I gave her a quick brush, but I wasn't really allowed to do much more because we were still working.
The next day when I came back to work, I found that the owners had moved Nevada outside to an old round pen that you had to kind of litterally take apart to get in; or you could climb over. It was actually all the peices of a normal round pen but there wasn't a door piece. Days and days after that when I came back, Nevada was still in that pen and hadn't been touched. Also, it had been raining the past few days and since Nevada's feet actually did feel a little bit better, she paced around a whole lot and turned the inside of the grass pen into a huge mud pit. She was filthy up past her knees for such a long time.
Finally, when I had some free time I went over to her pen and hung out with her again like I used to. During that time I was over there, I played around with her back a lot and put a lot of pressure on it pretending to maybe be on her back. At the center of her back, I pressed down and she skidded out from under my hands and got kind of jumpy. I don't know if it hurt her, or if she thought I was getting on and didn't like the idea of it. My friend told me that it might be possible for her to have back problems from the founder and such.
The day came when some people with a trailer came to pick her up and bring her back to the auction from which she came. However, this time she was going to be sold under 'unrideable/unbroken.'
The next day the owner sent me an email explaning how she loaded on to the trailer without any problem and was calm the whole way there. When to the place they found out that there was a bull rider out there. Ms.Kris then thought that it would be a good idea to see if he could ride the 'fear' out of her. How that one works, I don't know. Anyways, the bull rider tried her out and eventually bailed off too. He also just confirmed that she was unrideable. So off to the autcion she went.
That email was the last thing I heard about her or where she went. I would love to one day maybe try to track her down some how, but right now I don't think it's possible. Right now, I don't even know if she is still alive.

Anyways...that's pretty much Nevada's story. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I apologize for any spelling errors or bad grammar.


Nevada