By Diane Delano | Founder, The Wild Horse Rescue Centre
Dear Supporters,
Today I want to tell you the story behind this picture.
The photo is of Epic, a wild mustang gelding. This specific breed of mustang is very wild and very beautiful. It is exceptionally hard to gain their trust as they have a truly wild heart and they are unfamiliar, and therefore wary of humans and human interaction.
Epic was rounded up from the Kiger Mountains in Oregon last October 2015. He was adopted by another person, in January 2016, but she was having issues with gentling him. She reached out to us here at the Wild Horse Rescue Centre and in April we welcomed Epic to the farm for training and gentling.
When he arrived he was so afraid and would not even look at you. He was so wary of us that as soon as he saw us he'd try to race away and do his best to keep from any interaction with us humans.
We finally managed to get him into the gentling pens which are 24'x24' square pens with 6' panels. In the picture, I am touching Epic with a bamboo pole, we call this cane-poling. It is a form of touching before you can touch with your hand. The reason for this is because you can still keep enough distance between yourself and the horse, slowly working your way closer to be able to touch him by hand.
It has taken since April working with Epic on a regular basis to finally get my first touch on his skin just the other day, the June 8. It took 3 months and it has been an incredibly rewarding journey. There is still a long way to go, but we are so pleased with the progress.
We look forward to bringing you news of our progress with Epic in the coming months!
Thank you for your donations that make work like this possible.
With Gratitude
Diane
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