🐎 CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO MY CAMPAIGN! 🐎
I have wrestled alligators, rescued raptors, and tamed wild mustangs…. I am ready for the rodeo in Tallahassee. I am ready to fight for positive change.
I have always loved horses, since as far back as I can remember. There’s an incredible magic about them- about the bond that develops between horse and rider. Spending time with horses teaches so much about communication, respect, responsibility, and teamwork.
I’ve been riding and training horses since I was a kid. I’ve ridden in 4H shows, competed in competitive trail rides, taught riding lessons and summer camps, and adopted and gentled wild mustangs from the BLM.
My time with horses taught me so many valuable lessons when I was younger. As a teen and on into adulthood, working with horses soothed so much of my stress and anxiety, that it spurred me on to develop and manage mustang adoption and gentling programs for veterans, developmentally disabled youth and adults, children who have suffered abuse, survivors of domestic violence, and 4H youth groups. The program helps both BLM mustangs who have no where to go after being rounded up, and the participants who get a unique experience. Fostering a connection with their mustangs, and learning about overall equine management: safety, handling, husbandry, etc.- the mustang is gentled and desensitized during a 100-day natural horsemanship challenge, using positive reinforcement training methods to gain the horse’s trust. The gentled mustangs are then adopted out to forever homes.
The participants of the program learn horsemanship skills that translate into confidence building, development of coordination, leadership skills, and can even help with healing past traumas. The results of these mustang programs are priceless.
Since the pandemic, I have not been able to host the programs- but I plan to reopen them in the future, when things are safe again.
In the meantime, I’m running this grassroots campaign in the middle of a very red, rural area- while my daughter is learning the ropes. (pun intended)
When necessary, we take in rescue animals at our little farm. Rescues like Lyric….
Lyric was a 7-year-old mustang, who had been adopted from the Bureau of Land Management- but had never seen or been touched by humans before her round up. Ever. She was a scared. Filled with terror, and was probably the alpha mare (boss of her herd) as she was ready to fight for her life at any noise, breeze, or smell that she didn't recognize.
She would strike out with her front feet, and wheel around and double barrel kick with her back legs. She had no qualms about charging and biting anyone who dared to enter her pen. Because of this, she was left to starve. The humans that adopted her, surely didn't know what they were getting into. They left her with no food, no hay, no grass to nibble- she was on dirt. Left chewing wooden fence posts and licking dew off of the dirt.
When I first received calls, asking me to take action- to help this skeleton of a horse- I was more than hesitant. I went to see her, and was absolutely shocked by her condition. I had rescued starved and neglected horses for many years, but every time I have seen a horse in this bad of shape it was like a punch in the gut.
Her head hung low to the ground, not enough energy left to lift it. But still in flight or fight mode, and she stayed ready to fight because mustang are survivors. She would snort and paw at the ground as I came near. The bones in her neck, ribs, and every vertebrae down her spine could be seen, as she was so emaciated from lack of food.
She was slurping what was left from a recent rain, from a bucket that had fallen onto its side. I spoke to the owner, I encouraged her to give up the horse and allow me to take it- and I would try to save her. It took some convincing, but the owner finally gave in.
She came to our little ranchette in LaBelle. She was angry, fearful, dangerous- but there was kindness in her eyes. She slowly gained weight, and eventually allowed me to stand near her without trying to kill me. One day, weeks after she had been with me, she touched her nose to my arm, and then went back to eating.
Eventually, she allowed me to take her old, knotted-up halter off, and scratch behind her ears. From there, we moved slowly to petting her neck and head, learning to lead with a halter and lead rope, and after a while, she allowed herself to trust humans.
Well, that’s probably enough horse babble... I am off to work a bit on phone banking for BIDEN/HARRIS 2020!!! - and then I’m going to hit the hay, ha!
But I will write more soon. If you want this mustang taming, alligator wrestling, toddler mama to keep fighting for democracy- and ELECTED TO OFFICE, please donate to my campaign: CLICK HERE TO DONATE and send me to Tallahassee.
