No beam of light shone through Jamie Thomas' window in Auburn, Washington. No celestial voice directed her down the path to the Extreme Mustang Challenge.



Well Prepared Ground

Nor was this journey begun by accident, although it did take a little nudge.

As a lifelong horsewoman and accomplished dressage and three day event rider, Jamie knew something about conformation and rideability. That’s why her friend Scott, into horses for only three years but with a lot of ambition, asked her to go with him to the Burns Corrals in Oregon to help him pick out a mustang to adopt.

“We spent four days peering through binoculars at three hundred horses. In the mares pen there was a pinto…” Jamie stops. “You should know I like horses of color, fancy horses.” She smiles then resumes, “...and at her side was a baby, both were pintos.”

Jamie pauses for another aside. “I had heard stories about mustangs being dangerous, but I had recently been to a Steve Rother clinic. If I hadn’t gone through the clinic. I would have never tried a wild mustang.”

Steve Rother is an Oregon-based trainer who has worked with mustangs, and specializes in ground and liberty work. But back to the corrals....

"So in Burns, I saw the pair, and I said, ‘I REALLY like that pair.’

My friend said, 'we are here to get a horse for me.'

‘I know, but I like that pair.' So I went talk to the person in charge, and she said ‘You can’t take them, because the baby was just born. It has to be ID’d and weighed and branded. Besides, there’s a waiting list for them.' So I added my name to the waiting list.

Four months later, I had given up. Then I got a call, ‘Do you want your pair?’

'But I thought there were a lot of people who wanted them?'

‘They all changed their minds. Do you still want them?'”

The mare and her foal were transported to Portland, Oregon as part of the free delivery program the BLM offers as an incentive at “off-peak” adoption times. Jamie met them there. The trailers were backed together with steel corral panels closing the space, the transfer was made, and the mare and foal came to Auburn, Washington. Jamie named them Lakota’s River, known as River and Lakota’s Arrow, nicknamed Tucker.

“For two months I knew I couldn’t get near the mare, but the baby was curious.”

So Jamie started at the point of least resistance. By the time she had Tucker haltered and leading, River would let Jamie touch her.

That was only three years ago.

The Extreme Mustang Challenge

Ten days after that first touch, Jamie took River to a Steve Rother clinic. She describes that first experience as having a “balloon on a twenty-four foot line." Luckily her fellow clinic participants managed to work around her and stay out of the way.

Jamie has become a regular participant in Steve Rother’s Northwest clinics. Every time she arrives, he says "‘Okay, Jamie, what did you bring me today’ because I’m always bringing a new mustang, or a feedlot horse.”

After having sampled a number of methods and clinicians, she found his methods particularly effective for her. The “pressure and release” methods that he uses either in the halter/bridle or in liberty work were not hard for her to tune into.

“I had it naturally and I had it instinctively – if you have that, you’ll get it really fast. After attending Steve's clinics, I feel like I have a box of tools to use for training…”

Others obviously noticed her skills. Her role at the clinics began to change. “Another gal asked me for help. I did and Steve thanked me for helping.” This was a turning point for her. Steve Rother told her “Jamie, you’ve got the skills for this – you should hang out your shingle.” Jamie was reticent about calling herself a trainer, though. After all, Steve Rother does not have an apprentice program or offer certification, and Jamie has four degrees and places a high value on proper credentials.

It was at that moment that the Extreme Mustang Challenge came along, sponsored by The Mustang Heritage Foundation. It was also approaching Jamie’s 40th birthday. She was (and still is) the owner and manager of a thriving CAD drafting company, with her own four-acre horse property.

Here was the chance to take herself seriously as a trainer and test her mettle for a cause she was passionate about. She sent in her application – one of over two hundred people who applied for the one hundred available slots – and was accepted.

The horses were chosen from the numerous bay and sorrel geldings being held at the Palomino Valley corrals in Nevada and randomly matched with the applicants. At three to four years old, these were the mustangs that were typically passed over by prospective adopters. Here was a chance to show what they could do.

The horse Jamie was assigned she named Patriot. For the play-by-play description of his odyssey, you should read Jamie's Blog. It was while following the competition on line that I discovered that there were three participants from the Pacific Northwest and one - Jamie - who was only a few miles from Seattle.

The 100 days she had to work with Patriot were the most important part of the experience, but the competition in Fort Worth, Texas, was a highlight. “It wasn’t a typical competition. There were first time trainers all the way to professionals. Everyone was incredibly supportive.”

Jamie was the top bidder at the auction following the competition. She had fallen in love with him and could not bear to part with him. That was an expensive choice, as he was bid up to $3,800.

The only choice Jamie regrets is that she decided to work Patriot in Western tack at the competition, thinking she would fit in better with a Texas audience. Jamie herself is a dressage rider, and more comfortable in her familiar tack. She had no fault to find with Patriot’s behavior at the competition, though a slight off-course error eliminated him from the finals. She is sorry that she didn’t have a chance to show off his liberty skills or demonstrate his dressage suitability.

Next Moves

The vision of an upper-level dressage mustang was on her mind when she attended the Kiger auctions this November (her friend Scott was shopping again). She spotted a horse in another pen - a striking dun stallion from Beaty’s Butte – a horse that looked rather familiar to me (but that’s another story you can read in Horsebytes). Montana has the balanced conformation and powerful build to be capable of upper level work. Right now, he still “has a lot of leave in him, but that will change” Jamie laughs.

She’s in no rush. “You need to let them come to you. The way I do it – I leave them alone until they come to me.”

In the meantime, she has other horses to work with – including Ronan, the Extreme Mustang dropout she spotted in a transit pen at the Kiger auction in November, and her beloved Patriot, who was injured by another horse’s kick but is now sound and back on track. Ronan has already been adopted by Karen Davies but remains with Jamie, who is helping Karen and Ronan learn together. He has made significant strides already, Jamie says. “I can halter him and he is farrier friendly. He will be under saddle by next weekend. I am taking my time with him as there is no deadline this time.”

Jamie points out a significant difference she has noticed between the captive raised mustangs -– the ones who have grown up in the gender-segregated BLM pens where they are surrounded by other juvenile delinquents-- and the wild-raised horses, who have been educated by the herd. Senior mares and stallions have little patience for disrespectful youngsters in the wild. Patriot’s mischieviousness may result from lack of the discipline and heirarchy created by a mixed herd.

Another thing Jamie remarked on that distinguishes the unhandled horses is that when a mustang hits the end of the rope, they stop. They have not learned to push through pressure. This makes them easier to work with than a domestic horse who has learned to lean rather than to give.

The real source of Jamie’s attraction to the mustangs is the amount of mental focus that it takes. “I love the fact that it is not easy."



The Newly Minted Trainer

As far as her training goals, Jamie has decided that her new training business, called Nomad’s Rest Ranch after her notoriously mobile lifestyle, will not be about fixing other people’s problem horses – a reliable source of income for many trainers. Instead, she wants to start with the ones fresh off the range.

”I want to demonstrate what mustangs can do. I am going to gentle mustangs for a future in dressage. I am going to use my own background.”

That background was acquired in California, where she started riding as a pre-teen, taking English riding lessons, then jumping, with a good classical foundation. She showed in the hunter-jumper divisions up to 4”9” and evented, then switched her focus to dressage.

For a brief moment in her life Jamie was without a horse. Then her mother called – she was working on a fund raising auction for the Tim Conway Fund for Spastic Children, and 25 Arabian horses had been donated by Ventura Farms. Her mother got excited at the auction, and said, “I want to bid.” “Someone will bid after me,” she added with complete confidence.

A few moments later, Jamie had a horse again, though he should more properly be called a colt - he was only eight months old at that time. She credits Jedi Knight for providing the next phase in her education, where she was involved with the training of a horse from start to finish. “He was incredibly forgiving of all my indiscretions,” she says. He is now in his twenties, and an invaluable partner when ponying other horses in training.

Dressage, with its requirement for riding every stride, still keeps Jamie intrigued, as does liberty work. “I love engaging the horse’s mind.”

Jamie also enjoys involving the horse in other purposeful work, like team penning. She does ride the trails, but not as a leisure activity. She brings a horse in training along with her on a line so they can develop confidence in new environments.

After spending a few hours with Jamie, I am convinced that I will be seeing Montana at a dressage show sooner rather than later. If chosen to participate, she will also be a formidable competitor at the next Mustang Makeover, the Western States Mustang Challenge, which will be showcased at the Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, CA on June 6th-8th. To ease the travel requirement and spread the publicity, the Challenge has been divided into three regions.

A small change that several participants requested – with only thirty competitors, each trainer will get a chance to showcase their horse’s special talent. Jamie already knows what she will be showing. “Liberty work.” she says with a grin.


The Fly in the Ointment

Selling the horses she has started is hard – not because there aren’t buyers, but with so much invested in a horse, Jamie’s standards for a new owner are high. She talks about Pate. “He was so bonded with me. I couldn’t imagine loading him into a trailer with a stranger. Some horses, yes, but Patriot? Only if the person is the right type and came out and worked with him here.”

“He has surrendered himself to me. As if he was saying ‘I gave you my soul and you didn’t eat it.’ How could I just hand him over to a stranger? ”

“I wanted Pate to make the first move – if he made the first choice, he was comfortable. If I made it, he'd get scared.”

She closed her eyes and sighs. "With a mustang, it’s not the touch they are worried about. It’s the anticipation of the touch.”

Nonetheless, Jamie is fortifying herself against the next Mustang Makeover horse. She is looking for someone willing to be the high bidder at the next event, before she even brings him home to start his training. Of course, you’ll have to be his type – and outbid Jamie at the auction.


RELATED LINKS

Jamie Thomas' Extreme Mustang Blog

Mustang Heritage Foundation

Steve Rother - Horseteacher


RELATED INSIDE POOP STORIES

Wild Idea - The Extreme Mustang Makeover - background on the event

Into the Outback - a tour of mustang territory

The American Mustang - a breed profile