Last Chance Mustang

by Mitchell Bornstein

  I was the Mustang’s only ally and apologist.

  Each week, week after week, Samson had some form of a meltdown. Every advance was met with obstruction, violence, or a combination of the two. And as luck would have it, Amy just happened to be present on those days when Samson lost it. Having time and time again observed Samson at his worst, Amy was growing increasingly frustrated and impatient. His successes were her highs, his failures her lows. It seemed there was more here than an owner who wanted her horse rehabilitated. It seemed that Amy had some other interest in Samson’s successes and failures.

  The gap between Samson and Amy was growing into a schism. My concern that Samson would be shown the door—or in this case the gate—grew greater. We needed results, and soon.

  Every training session now included and followed a fixed order of routines and practices. Predictability would be the best tool to impose order and control upon this horse. Provide a horse like Samson a routine and you in turn remove his fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown and fear of change are traits that all horses carry and, when combined, together they present the greatest impediment to a successfully trained mount. Make the horse your partner in the training process, key it into what is going to happen and when, and the sky is your limit. Keep the horse guessing and in the dark, and you only sustain its anxiety and doom your hopes for a well-trained and receptive steed.

  Through the years, Samson’s fear of the unknown had kept him rigid, on the defense, and primed to strike. If he could predict anything, it most likely involved a whip, lariat, or beat-down. The associated anxiety made it nearly impossible for him to function and carry out the most basic of tasks. But now things would be different.

  Week after week, Samson was caught, his halter removed, his legs picked up, and he was brushed—same order, same routine, same thing, time after time. For certain actions, he received praise and reward. For other specified behaviors, he was punished and made to work. He and I were to be equally informed as to what was going to happen, when, and why. As Xenophon instructed, we would be partners.

  No longer anxious and fearful, Samson could eventually willingly assent to my dominion, my control, and my teachings. It was a theory and a practice that works. A theory and a practice, with a horse like Samson, easier said than done.

  It was a theory and practice that soon yielded results.

  When I arrived at the farm in mid-November, Samson greeted my appearance with a series of perfectly executed concentric circles. He wasn’t pounding; he wasn’t bounding; he was prancing. Fluid and aristocratic, Samson was showing off. I’m ready to work, he seemed to announce. As I unloaded my gear, Amy made her way down the driveway.

  “You mentioned the other day that you wanted pictures of Samson, right?” I questioned her. “Well, I recommend you get your camera.” I don’t know exactly what I saw, but something told me this was the day that Samson would “join up.”

  Minutes later, I had Samson under lead as I brushed his coat, removed the burrs, and lifted his forelegs off the ground. Together, we walked in unison as I taught him the verbal commands of “walk up” and “whoa.” We covered the entire expanse of the crib pasture, traveled through the gate, and entered the roadside pasture. “Whoa, stand, and hold your stand,” I told my focused student as we came to rest on the concrete pad that encircled the barn. As Samson held his stand, I gently rubbed his neck, face, and muzzle. Several minutes passed while the sedate Mustang took in the entirety of his massage.

  And then, without warning, he slowly turned his neck to the left, closed his eyes, and buried his head deep into my chest. Instantly the warrior’s body—permanently taut and tense since our first meeting and for years before that—suddenly went limp. I didn’t know what to do and for fear of ruining the moment did nothing. He then released a long, exhaustive sigh that when combined with a single inhaled breath resembled the sound of a foghorn. It was a sigh that seemed to discharge years of fear, contempt, and doubt.

  Samson had finally voluntarily submitted—he had “joined up” with me.

  Samson’s face remained tucked in my chest for a good two minutes. Once he removed it and returned his head to the vertical position, I turned my attention to Amy. “Please tell me that you got that shot?” I asked.

  I waited for a response, but there was none. Seated on a water bucket with the camera on the ground beside her, Amy remained silent. I stood shocked, relieved, and reenergized as she cradled her head and sobbed. Like her Mustang’s long, exhaustive sigh moments before, Amy’s sobs seemed to release years of bottled-up stress, doubt, and pressure. Samson’s breakthrough moment had been cathartic for both this dysfunctional Mustang and his emotionally spent owner.

  Samson the reticent Mustang had exposed a side of himself that no one had ever seen and in doing so he had earned a reprieve. He was safe, for now.

  Amy and I chatted for thirty minutes while Samson stood perfectly still. Ten minutes into the conversation he dropped his head and dozed off to dreamland. “Who would have figured it?” I declared to Amy. “Your perpetually troubled, socially dysfunctional Mustang has made his first friend.”

  Sadly, the bliss was short-lived. In just days, the bond that had developed between Samson and me, all that he had learned and digested, would be cast in doubt and placed in jeopardy. In a heartbeat and in an instant, a traumatic encounter would return this horse to his dark past and the old Samson would once again emerge.

  * * *

  Rejuvenated by Samson’s actions, I returned days later. As I unloaded my gear, I observed Amy conversing with the driver of a truck that had pulled up the driveway behind me. Minutes later, I was introduced to Frank, Samson’s previous owner. Staring in the direction of his farm, he told me of the devastating barn fire, how he came to own Samson, and what he knew of the Mustang’s past.

  “When I bought this horse, I was told to not even waste time trying to be nice,” Frank explained. He then continued, “This horse is a real son of a bitch and if you have any hopes of handling him, then you need to put a pretty good beat-down on him so that he has no choice but to submit. Also, make sure that you always have at least two other guys with you so that you can get one or two ropes on him and muscle him down. I can’t really see that the women here are going to help you with that, so I can always lend you a hand.”

  “Really,” I responded, “a pretty good beat-down? Is that every time, or just initially?”

  “Every time. Always,” Frank answered without a moment’s hesitation. “And if you approach him one-on-one, my friend, I don’t think you’ll be coming back.”

  After a lengthy pause, Frank continued, “You’ll probably need a good piece of wood.”

  “Some wood?” I asked incredulously. “You mean like a two-by-four?”

  “It works like a charm,” Frank replied with an air of bravado.

  I had heard enough. I now had the final piece of the puzzle. In legal jargon, a preponderance of the evidence convinced me that Samson had been unjustly battered and beaten. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt said that this Mustang’s abusers were guilty of chronic and systematic abuse. While I held no personal animus toward Frank, it was obvious that we each held manifestly differing opinions on how to treat not only this horse but all horses. My worst fears regarding Samson’s past were no longer conjecture; my fears were now conclusive fact.

  Through the course of my training career, the horses I have worked with can be segregated into one of three categories. Type I horses are young, untrained, and green and fall into two subcategories: normal and difficult dispositions. For whatever reason, I have always gravitated to the difficult, aggressive personalities. Experience has shown that if trained properly during their youth, wayward and headstrong type I horses make fearless and steadfastly obedient companions under saddle.

  Type II horses are horses who are older and have yet to be broke, trained older horses whose schooling has omitted particular critical elements, or trained horses who have developed certain unaccepta
ble behaviors or vices. Examples of type II horses include a saddle-broke horse who has yet to learn how to yield to pressure, a horse who body bashes a handler under lead, kicks when its legs are handled, or walks off from under a rider during mounting. Horses who are chemically fueled, overly aggressive, or violent and horses who have been traumatized, mishandled, or abused in any way round out the third category, type III problem horses. Type III horses can range from a horse who needs to overcome its fears to reenter a trailer following an accident to any horse who has suffered through malnourishment, isolation, or physical or mental cruelty.

  As a combination of type II and III horses, Samson was the sum of all my fears. He was the perfect storm. And on this quiet Sunday afternoon, I was about to witness firsthand the damage left behind from a lifetime of abuse.

  “My friend,” Frank interjected as I climbed over the pasture fence, “you’re not even carrying a lariat to rope the beast. I think it is best if I give you a hand.”

  “No thanks. I’ll find some way to manage!” I yelled back over my shoulder with a hint of sarcasm and contempt.

  Since my arrival, Samson had remained parked on the far side of the corncrib—hidden from view. With all of the activity and people, I thought nothing of it. When he was confronted by either commotion or strangers, this was Samson’s modus operandi. As I closed in on his position, I felt a strange sensation and turned to observe Frank following close behind.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I declared as I stepped right up into Frank’s face, “you can’t be in here.”

  “I know this monster better than anyone; trust me, you will want my help. Hey look, there’s the beast now,” Frank responded as he pointed over my shoulder toward the corncrib.

  A glance over my left shoulder revealed Samson’s head—and only his head—as he peered around the corncrib’s far wall. He looked as though he had been napping, but as his clouded eyesight turned clear his eyes confirmed what his ears had heard. It seemed obvious that Frank wasn’t this horse’s first sadistic owner, but he was certainly the last and Samson remembered him well. Awakened from a slumber to a wash of painful memories, the beast inside Samson exploded.

  Charging forward, Samson took out the high-tensile electric line that cordoned off the pasture’s dangerous terrain, darted through the open gate, galloped across the roadside pasture, and disappeared. Like the dust cloud from his crazed frenzy, our progress, all that Samson had learned, quickly evaporated.

  “You should have listened to me, my friend; I tried to warn you!” Frank yelled as he took off in pursuit. “Now we really need to teach him a lesson.”

  Before I could respond, I heard a loud crash—the undeniable sound of high-speed impact between horse and fence. My worst fear had now become reality. Samson had crashed the split-rail perimeter fence, injured himself, and escaped. He was willing to risk it all to get away. The only person who could capture the fugitive was me, and I already knew, long since understood, that there was no way to capture this Mustang if he was truly crazed, frenzied, or injured.

  Enough was enough. Incensed by what had just occurred, I focused my wrath on Frank. “I understand your interest in helping here, but you signed Samson over a long time ago and he is no longer your horse. So leave, now!”

  My heart down at my ankles, I assumed Samson was gone, long gone. If this was the case, then his fate was sealed. He would most likely run as far and as fast as he could and wind up under the wheels or in the windshield of a pickup truck coming around the valley’s countless blind curves. If fortunate to avoid such an end, Samson would nevertheless happen upon a neighbor, his dog, cattle, or horses, then attack, as he was prone to do, and wind up felled by a shotgun round. Either way, he would not be coming back.

  Once I passed through the open gate, to my shock and amazement, I saw Samson standing in the far corner of the roadside pasture. His respirations were off the charts, his body trembling, muscles twitching, and his eyes bulging out from the sockets. This was not the horse I had worked with the last several weeks. In fact, he was unlike any horse I had ever observed. In twenty years I had seen and worked with the best of the worst at their worst, and at that very moment they had nothing on Samson.

  Samson, the horse I believed held no weaknesses, was stricken to his core with terror.

  As I made my approach, it was clear that Samson was still intent on attempting another prison break, so my movements were kept slow and deliberate. From fifteen yards away, I observed clumps of hair tangled in the barbed wire strung across the wooden fence’s now-shattered top rail. At ten yards and closing, Samson spun, faced me head-on, and stopped my approach dead in its tracks. Drops of blood trickled from sections of his chest previously covered with hair. He raised his neck higher than I had ever observed, violently shook his head up, down, and back again, and repeatedly slammed his right hoof hard into the dense soil.

  His message was undeniable: Approach no further.

  Without moving my legs, I leaned forward to test the waters. Samson met my ever-so-minimal movement with his own. He rotated hard to his left, showed me his hind end, and delivered three pounding double hind-leg kicks. If this were any other horse, I would have addressed the unacceptable show of violence and force. But it was Samson. I understood where he was coming from and what he felt.

  In an instant Samson’s dark past and vivid memories had reappeared and resurfaced. Witness protection had relocated the chronically victimized Mustang and now his safe house was both discovered and violated. This was all my fault. Weeks prior, I had made Samson a pledge. I promised him that the darkness and abuse of his past was just that—the past. I assured Samson that he could put those days and those memories behind him and that he would be forever safe and protected.

  I was clearly wrong.

  While Samson faced the road and mapped out his escape, his right eye wildly darted back and forth between the rolling hills in the distance and my position behind and off to his right. Freedom, he must have thought to himself, that is the only way I will forever be safe. I arced around Samson’s right side and came to rest alongside the damaged perimeter fence. There horse and horseman stood parallel to each other and ten yards apart.

  “No, buddy, this road and those rolling hills do not hold the solution to your problems; your new life will be over before it even has the chance to get started.” I told Samson as he plotted out his new exit strategy. “This is my fault; I made a promise and I broke that promise. I will fix this.”

  Samson didn’t hear a word I said. Like a soldier suffering from shell shock, he just wasn’t all there. After nearly an hour of standing beside and talking to my frazzled four-legged friend, I was able to finally approach and clip on to Samson. Together, inch by inch, we made our way back to the crime scene—the corncrib pasture—where we rejoined Amy. Though I had no control over the ghosts that had taken up residence in Samson’s head, I did have control over the demon who had just reappeared. Seeking to keep the discussion short and simple, I dispensed with the usual emotional and moral arguments and went right for the jugular—dollars, cents, and liability.

  “You know,” I spoke to Amy while gently rubbing Samson’s special spot, “next time Samson won’t run away and Frank won’t get away. As Samson’s owner and the holder of this property, you will be on the hook both financially and legally. My suggestion is that you go out of your way to make sure that Frank never goes anywhere near Samson, or Samson’s pasture, again.”

  It took mere seconds for Amy to digest and respond to my comments, “Samson has already done enough damage. I simply can’t afford, nor do I even want to deal with, any more problems resulting from his psychotic breakdowns. I will tell Frank that you have stated that no one is permitted anywhere near Samson’s vicinity. You can be the bad guy, not me.”

  I didn’t really care if I was the bad guy or not. All that mattered was that Samson once again felt safe and protected and that he had a home. All that mattered was that Samson was able to put and keep his dark days
in the past where they belonged.

  I then realized that while Samson and I had been making great strides together, the damage inflicted from his earlier life had continually hindered, if not wholly impeded, our advance. Working with Samson was like standing on the ocean’s edge as the tide came in; our progress advanced, then retreated, advanced, then retreated. No two of our training sessions ended with the same progress; no two of our sessions concluded with the same retreat. It would have been overwhelming had Samson not been making such grand efforts. At that moment, I understood that while most of my horse clients eventually shed the majority of their demons, Samson would never shed any of his. There was no way around it; Samson would forever bear the scars—physical and emotional—of a harsh and unforgiving life.

  I was Sisyphus, doomed to push the rock up the hill only to have it eternally roll back down.

  * * *

  As November came to a close and winter zeroed in, my focus shifted from Samson to the obliterated barn. With temperatures inside the structure hovering nearly ten degrees below those outside, the barn provided little safe haven from the elements. My years working as a carpenter in college and graduate school would now come in handy as I broke out the circular saw, level, hammer, and nails and went to work. Over the course of two weeknights, I boarded up the missing windows, resheeted the aerated interior walls, repaired the shattered exterior door, insulated the stall area, and rebuilt the stalls. When I arrived home well after 1:00 a.m. on the second night, the barn was warm and cozy and the task complete.

  The following morning, I slept through my alarm, stumbled in late to a court call, and nearly caused a client’s case to be dismissed. After being lambasted by the judge and embarrassed before my peers, I took a few minutes to catch up with a mentor from my early practice days who had witnessed the public flogging.