Last Chance Mustang

by Mitchell Bornstein

  {8}

  TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, AND TRAGEDY

  A horse is the projection of people’s dreams about themselves—strong, powerful, beautiful—and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundance existence.

  —PAM BROWN

  In much the same fashion that hardship and cruelty have followed Samson, violence and abuse have dogged the wild Mustang. Just two years after the American public mobilized and Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, sixty of Idaho’s last remaining wild horses were chased for forty-five days through the dead of winter, captured, and decimated. Federally protected horses were run off cliffs, legs were broken, hog rings sewn into noses, and carcasses sawed into pieces. Only eleven horses survived, and yet the U.S. Attorney for Idaho declined to press charges. Targeted violence and brutality would continue unabated for years to follow with state and federal officials refusing to prosecute the criminally responsible parties.

  Three decades later, in the spring of 2005, three men were arrested for roping and then castrating a wild Mustang stallion. The horse bled to death from his injuries, and the men who used a pocketknife to mutilate him received suspended sentences. Regardless of the year or the decade, it was a far too common story and an all too frequent act. Disinterested legislatures and courts have seen to this fact. Whether by tacit approval or distanced apathy, the message has remained the same: crimes against the unwanted, feral Mustang warrant little concern and even less justice. If history has taught one certainty, it is that the curse of the Mustang has followed Samson and his breed across time and over great distance.

  By the second week of December, a fresh coat of snow and frigid temperatures meant that Samson would require his blanket full-time. Weeks of socialization had indicated that he was ready and willing to accept it. But when I knelt down beside him and reached for the surcingles—the straps that would cross beneath his belly and hold the blanket in place—Samson let fly a left hind-leg strike that whizzed past my cheekbone and sliced deep into my neck’s right side.

  The powerful impact spun me around 180 degrees, leaving me facedown on the ground perpendicular to Samson’s body as the pristine white snow turned bloodred. There was no warning, no instigation, no justification, and certainly no explanation.

  Through the course of our relationship, acts such as this would remain commonplace. For years to come, unprovoked, unsolicited rage and violence would plague my interactions with Samson. As he lacked malice aforethought, I would come to term these fits “Samson’s PTSD moments.” Some unknown stimulus triggers a deeply embedded memory and in an instant, in a flash, the chronically abused Mustang—without thinking—erupts. To look upon Samson in the moments following these episodes was to see a horse with glassy, glossed-over eyes, a vacant facial expression, and a complete lack of awareness as to what had just occurred. It was as if he had momentarily blacked out and then regained consciousness. This was the cost of working with a habitually abused animal.

  This was the cost of doing business with Samson.

  While Samson initially greeted his blanket’s permanency with utter disdain, he soon came to realize that it could help him survive the harsh realities of the fast-approaching Midwest winter. The first time that Studs, Ike, and Star saw Samson wearing it, the three entered into a loud and extended chorus of whinnies and nickers. Seemingly berating, deriding, and mocking their most feared neighbor, their cackles announced wimp, puppy, and momma’s boy. Like Joseph with his amazing technicolor dreamcoat, Samson nevertheless held his head high and walked a spirited stride. He now had his first possession, something that he could call his very own.

  By the second Sunday of the month, Samson was facing the first of two important tests. The farrier was due out and Samson was to have his first hoof trim free of chemical sedation. Since Amy had unsuccessfully tried her luck with several farriers allegedly well versed with difficult horses, she agreed to give my guy, Dan Tesar, a shot. Dan and I were the same age, had known each other for many years, worked well together, and were good friends. Both professionally and personally, Dan was an anomaly.

  On a professional level, Dan knew every inch of a horse’s body, inside to outside and then back. With a four-year animal science degree, a farrier certificate, and having grown up with and trained horses, Dan was a walking and talking horse encyclopedia. A journeyman by trade, he had traveled the country both shoeing horses and lecturing on and demonstrating his technique. By forty years of age, he had seen, done, and accomplished it all. When it came to trimming, Dan’s angles were right on. When it came to shoeing, Dan was a natural.

  Unlike the majority of modern-day farriers who now cold-shoe horses—purchase and install prefabricated and commercially produced stock shoes—Dan hand-builds and forges each and every of his shoes from nothing more than a linear piece of steel. While others are forced to fit a horse’s foot to a stock shoe, Dan builds and molds the shoe to fit the hoof. Steel is his medium, horseshoes his artwork, and shoeing his craft.

  On a personal level, I found Dan to be one of a dying breed. He took pride in his work, he was unflinchingly honest, his word was his bond, and his bond was as strong as the steel shoes that he built. He would settle for nothing less than perfection for each of his horses and all of his clients. Perhaps the biggest testament to my belief in Dan’s abilities came by way of the fact that I employed his services despite the fact that he lived in far northern Wisconsin—more than four and a half hours’ driving distance. He was, in my estimation, as good as they came and worth the inherent difficulties associated with having a farrier several hours away.

  He was perfect for Samson.

  Less than a week earlier, I had finally and successfully lifted and picked out all four of Samson’s hooves. It had been a long, violent, and frustrating process. In Samson’s mind, his hind legs and especially his hind hooves were a no-fly zone and, like the FAA, he had strictly enforced the no-fly rules. With twelve years to perfect his technique, his hind-leg strikes were both teeth shattering and potentially bone breaking. He was Muhammad Ali and George Foreman all in one. He was a welterweight with a heavyweight’s bark and bite.

  After weeks of battle, and once Samson had lifted and permitted his hooves to be picked, he—unlike his earlier act of sacrificial defiance—accepted and devoured his peppermint reward. I was now confident that Samson could tolerate his hooves being shaved with the rasp and trimmed with the nippers.

  I was not confident that he would tolerate anyone other than me doing it.

  Two days prior to the scheduled farrier appointment, I received an urgent e-mail stating that Samson was nursing yet another injury. Studs the paint gelding had ventured too close to the Mustang sentry’s fence line and in a fit of anger Samson had teed off on the unforgiving and unyielding steel utility tube gate. Once at the farm, I assessed the injury. With an avulsed hoof wall—a piece left torn and dangling similar to a hangnail—and significant vertical crack to the hoof’s “quarter” section, the damage was significant. To make matters worse, the injury was to Samson’s left hind hoof—the one that for some unknown reason he guarded with his maximum fervor and wrath.

  There was no way around it—I couldn’t leave this job to any other. Having never trusted anyone to handle, let alone treat, an injured hoof, Samson was now being asked to let me do both. He was being asked yet again to make a huge, blind leap of faith.

  Holding the lead line, the squirrelly Samson, and his hoof while operating the nippers at the same time put my skills to the test. With me bent over in his strike zone and Samson’s left leg resting immobilized on my left thigh, both horse and horseman were fully exposed and totally vulnerable. Under Samson’s unblinking scrutiny, I grabbed the hoof nippers and wasted no time cutting away the avulsed hoof wall. Next I used the rasp—shaving down all of the sharp edges and evening out the surface of the hoof wall. On the verge of losing it, Samson nevertheless did not lose it. He answered my call to bring his A game and in doing so exerc
ised unflinching trust and tremendous restraint.

  Concerned how things would play out during Samson’s looming farrier visit, I couldn’t help but interject words of instruction with his much-warranted praise. “Way to step it up, buddy,” I told my mentally exhausted student. “This is exactly what I need from you when Dan is here.”

  Two days later with Dan out at the farm the plan was threefold. Part one entailed Dan and me standing in the pasture and casually conversing while I held Samson secured from a distance. The purpose was to demonstrate that much like myself, Dan posed no threat to the ever doubting and threatened Mustang. For phase two, we left Samson in a stall while Dan, standing in the barn aisle in full view, trimmed Studs, Ike, and Star. Though this process of observational or vicarious learning has been rejected by many horse experts, I have successfully employed it countless times throughout the years. While horses lack the ability to replicate a series of observed complex actions, they can take note of pain, threat, discomfort, or ease when watching herd mates.

  In this instance, the demonstration that unfolded before Samson’s eyes sent what was now a redundant message: that Dan posed no threat and meant no harm. The plan’s third component was straightforward: have Dan enter Samson’s space and, once the anxious patient relaxed, go to work.

  After a few minutes standing beside Samson’s right foreleg, Dan had seen enough to formulate the appropriate conclusions. “So,” he blurted out with an inquisitive tone, “who messed up this guy?”

  “Everyone,” I responded. “The better question is who didn’t.”

  “And who,” Dan inquired with a grin from ear to ear, “did the hatchet job on Samson’s left hind hoof?… The poor guy may never walk again.”

  It was our thing—a way of defusing stress and tension.

  After forty-five minutes of Dan whispering reassuringly to Samson, it was time to get the show started. Slowly, Dan bent over, reached down, and lifted the right foreleg. The panicked sound of Samson’s hurried and shortened breaths filled the aisle as his eyes nervously darted from Dan to me and then back again to Dan.

  “He’s hyperventilating,” Dan declared as he froze in place. “Do you still want me to continue?”

  “Yes,” I responded. “This is how he gets.”

  Dan then placed Samson’s right leg between his own, tightened them together like a vice grip, and went to work with the rasp. His fluid and active movements from within Samson’s personal space were a first and presented an unquestioned threat to the Mustang’s perimeter defenses. It was all so new and all so totally overwhelming. Samson was trying to cope, but it was obvious he was losing this battle as well as his composure. He needed security, reassurance, and a sign that said that everything was going to be all right.

  Panic-stricken, he momentarily averted his gaze away from Dan and turned back toward me. Once again, his eyes spoke. I am here and consenting to this because of you. I don’t know this guy; I only know you. Tell me that this is going to be okay; tell me that I am going to be okay. Recognizing that Samson was moments away from losing it, I took one step toward his muzzle. Our eyes met for a brief second, and then Samson buried his face deep into my chest. A loud and powerful exhalation eased his taut and constricted muscles from their death grip as Dan, bent over yet fully aware that something had just changed, announced, “Now that’s a good boy, Samson.”

  From that point forward, the afternoon progressed fairly smoothly. At one point while Dan worked on his right hind leg, Samson sent a minor declaration of defiance with a halfhearted kick. Delivered straight back rather than off to the side where Dan stood, the kick was intended more as a statement and less as a strike intended to make contact. Ever consistent and true to himself, Samson sent the identical message when Dan worked on the opposing and guarded left hind hoof. Dan, much like me, was now on notice—Samson was a proud and prideful horse, a horse demanding and commanding of respect.

  “This guy’s quite the willful horse,” Dan proclaimed, “with a sense of humor to boot.” Indeed.

  I steadied my gaze upon Samson and spoke, “Really! Seriously! You are a jerk. The little minis kicked better than you today. For weeks I have been your little human piñata and today you don’t even make Dan break a sweat!”

  “Oh, he’s a cream puff,” Dan said. “And I think you, Mitch, I think you’re just getting soft in your old age.”

  If this were any of my other horses, then I would have been filled with both a sense of pride and one of accomplishment. But this wasn’t just another of my many horses. On this day, I was left feeling more like a proud parent than a mere satisfied teacher. It was just one more indication that something was different between this horse and this horseman.

  Several years have now passed since Samson’s first pedicure, and he still remains anxious and jittery when his hooves are trimmed. Nevertheless, with each of Dan’s visits, Samson has assumed the position, as we have come to call it—his face buried in my chest—and stood without incident as his hooves have been nipped and rasped. It is what works for him.

  It works for him because on that first afternoon with Dan, with his head buried in my chest, Samson learned something new. He realized that safety and security could help him through a trying and overwhelming experience. He came to recognize that with a little help he could cope rather than fight. That day, Samson discovered self-control, maturity, and inner strength. He also silenced his many critics—the naysayers who had claimed that his legs could not, would not, be handled absent strong chemical sedation. That afternoon, Samson not only silenced his detractors, but he also proved that my belief in him, my conviction that he could and would be rehabilitated and trained, was well founded.

  It was the push I needed to keep going.

  With his hoof trim a rousing success, I spoke the words that needed to be said before releasing Samson to his pasture: “We are getting there, buddy. One by one, you and I, together, will slay each of your ghosts.”

  Two days later, I returned for a very rare early-morning weekday visit. The time had come for the second of Samson’s two main benchmarks. As I had requested that he receive a tetanus booster and seasonal vaccinations, my presence was more compulsory than voluntary. In order to avoid any ruffled feathers, I had asked Amy to advise the veterinarian that I would be present and handling Samson so as to ensure everyone’s safety.

  Once at the farm, I was greeted by the veterinarian’s assistant: a short fellow, in his fifties, with what appeared to be an awfully large chip parked on his shoulder. Immediately I had him pegged as one who had spent many years at the track handling and mishandling racehorses owned by others—animals that he could never even aspire to own. I knew his type well, and so did Samson. Resentment and jealousy ruled the assistant’s thoughts, and pain and punishment were the only two “skills” in his training repertoire. There was no way this was going to end well.

  “So,” the assistant declared, “you’re the big trainer who is going to both tell and show us how to do our jobs.”

  Houston, we have a problem.

  With far too many similar conversations in my past, I chose the high road, brushed by the little man, and headed into the barn. Once I was inside, the assistant’s monologue continued, “It’s people like you who end up getting professionals like us injured. I’ve spent my life working with gigantic hot-blooded, crazed Thoroughbreds. Trust me, I can handle that little horse parked there in that stall with my eyes closed and without even breaking a sweat. No one here needs your help.”

  While I would never put Samson in harm’s way, in this case he was not the one who was going to be in harm’s way. “Be my guest; please, do show me how it’s done,” I implored the veterinarian’s assistant.

  Everything from that point forward is more or less a fuzzy, hazy, dusty blur. The assistant opened the stall door. Samson in turn responded with a double-leg hind-end barrage that impacted the door frame and sent wood splinters and the unwelcome intruder flying. The veterinarian’s assistant then took
off running, jumping onto and then vaulting over the gate that cordoned off the stall area. The entire incident lasted just seconds and was both shockingly violent and exceedingly comical. The brutalized victim and the take-no-prisoners four-legged antagonist were back.

  As the dust slowly dissipated, Samson’s stall door swung back and forth with no indication of slowing down. It was a scene reminiscent of a Clint Eastwood western: bodies strewn across the saloon floor, the dual doors swinging wildly back and forth as the man with no name stood silent, unmoving, and emotionless. Samson too stood motionless, impassive, and poised for round two.

  Lying in the exact spot where he landed after tumbling over the gate, gasping to catch his breath, the assistant just couldn’t leave well enough alone, “Okay, Mr. Big Shot, let’s see you get within five feet of that stall.”

  “Turn,” I told Samson as I stepped up into the stall. As he spun around and brought his head into my chest, Samson’s face came into view and it bore an all-too-familiar expression. As one of five brothers, I knew “the look.” When I was growing up, not a month passed when a lawn light or sprinkler head wasn’t broken during the throes of some basketball, soccer, football, or wrestling match. In a pretty good month perhaps we shattered a car windshield; in a really great month, a window in the house. We often spent vast amounts of time hashing and rehearsing our explanations: the neighbor’s dog broke the sprinkler head while chasing a squirrel; a stone thrown from a passing truck shattered the windshield. Despite all of our efforts, when it came time to tell our father the expression on our faces said that which our mouths could not.

  Guilty as charged.

  As I looked upon Samson, his expression spoke of guilt. After months together, he knew how I felt about his violent outbursts. He knew that he had broken the rules. I leaned into him and whispered into his left ear. We then exited the stall and seconds later, as I held the lead line, Samson received his shots without incident. Moments later, I released my Mustang pupil to the pasture, with him having passed his exam with flying colors.