What I noticed most about the three wild horses was their confusion. Of course, it made sense. They had been born into a truly feral environment. What happened to them, after 3 years of living in a natural, wild state was the equivalent of being abducted by extraterrestrials! They began to see me as a source of food - maybe "not all that bad", but certainly still a very scary presence in the barn. They were eating from the feed tubs with the halters tied in them (and balancing their diet was a challenge - in those days, grass hays were hard to find in northern New Mexico, everyone fed alfalfa!), my tame horses were influencing them (I put a school horse in a stall beside each wild one); so I started standing in a stall with a bucket of pellets, bran and herbs quietly waiting for each youngster to approach. Being Buddhist really helps at these times. You have to be calm, relaxed, patient and still as you allow each horse the sovreignty of his own time frame to acceptance. I had a halter on Chinquapen in no time and was hand grooming him. Dawn had an affinity for my boyfriend/partner, Leon, who got her halter on next. Onyx was to become Leon's horse... Onyx was the most volatile. He hated seeing humans in the aisle (when students arrived for lessons or we took out another horse for turn out or training) so we made a dummy by stuffing clothes with newspapers (named it "Wally") and hung it just outside his stall. It did help.
But, we had 2 young stallions... I decided castration was a priority. I fed the two a strong dose of Ace granules the morning of the planned surgery. They actually ate it. The Vet helped and he and Leon quickly and carefully got a halter on the wobbly Onyx. Chinquapen was all smiles! They had standing castrations in the aisle of the barn. Onyx needed more drugs than Chinquapen, but the strange thing was that, after the gelding and now wearing a leather halter with a 12 inch cotton rope tied on it - Onyx became easier to approach right away. I felt like he had given in and given up... but even at that, Onyx was still wild as a whirlwind. He just acknowleged our existence now!
