On October 25th, 2020, two women drove from New Haven to Bennington, Vermont, to see some horses.
Nothing out of the ordinary, except that the horses in question were untouched, untamed mustangs. One was a plain, sturdy bay gelding who was at the bottom of the little herd’s social hierarchy. The other was a striking white-faced mare who bravely reached out to a human hand even as she shook with fear.
Their names would be Merlin and Kestrel, and they were the start.
On December 19th, they jumped out of a stock trailer and into our first corral, built of six-foot, heavy-duty steel panels designed to contain bulls and bison. On December 23rd, Kestrel’s BLM identification tag came off her neck.
We were both former off-track Thoroughbred girls, but we were instant converts.
We’d been warned that mustangs were addictive, so it wasn’t quite a surprise when two more geldings—Sparrowhawk and Chrysaetos—joined the little herd in mid-February. Soon after that, word got out that someone in New Haven was gentling mustangs, and people started reaching out to have their own wild horse trained.
It started with friends, bartering farm help for training. But soon, it was obvious that people in New England wanted to adopt mustangs—they just didn’t know where to look, or how to do it. We had the experience, we had the facility, and we had a growing network in the mustang training community. It was time to step up.
RAMS was born from a love of America’s wild horse—our own love, sure, but New England’s too. There are over 50,000 mustangs in holding facilities in the western states, and the people here are ready to help give them new skills, fresh purpose, and a soft place to land.
Welcome to the Rising Action Mustang Society. We’re so glad you’re here.
