I got my mare Nevada last February. At first I thought she was a filly,
but it turned out she was actually thirteen. Since it was winter, we left
her in our pasture till spring came. When all the snow had finally melted,
my mom and I began training her. Obviously she had never been touched before
because she lived out in the Nevada plains her entire
life.
To begin training her, we
got her used to being petted with a six foot bamboo pole. We used it to even
get the winter coat off her back. We than built a chute with logs. When she
went inside, my mom would stand in there with her and wait for her to come
to her. Of course she never did because she was so stubborn. Finally she
let us touch her weeks later.
Every day we would touch
her and she slowly became accustomed to human hands. A few months later,
I helped my mom build a smaller chute where only one horse could stand in.
We were able to groom her, bathe her and finally put a halter on her. But
she still was really slow at getting used to these things.
That's when in August, we
got another mustang, a gelding. She was really bossy to him. That's when
we realized she had to have been a lead mare. She always stole his food and
kicked him. She did the same thing when we got another mustang mare. But
she was even tougher on her. She left patches of hair missing on our other
mare. Nevada seemed to be impossible to train! I knew we'd never get
anywhere with her. She was just too violent and didn't want to listen.
Sadly, on November 30, she was lying down all day. When I got home from school,
she was still laying in the exact same stop she'd been that morning. My mom
said she tried to get her up but she just wouldn't move. I knew something
was wrong. We knew it wasn't colic. When my little sister went to give her
a treat, her hand was covered in blood. I was on a forum, and someone said
it may have been an ulcer. To this day I'm still not sure what it was. So
I'll stick with the fact it was an ulcer.
That awful night, my mom
decided to give her a tranquilizer. We hoped it would act like a lethal
injection, and of course the next morning it did. It seemed as if the world
was crying for her because it turned out to be a snow day. Snow
and freezing rain almost made her body stick to the ground. We waited eagerly
for the dead livestock guy to come pick her up. He couldn't get his truck
in our back pasture so, my mom, my sister's boyfriend and his friend and
I, all helped drag her body out of there with all our strength.
Nevada may have been mean, she kicked and was untrainable, but she was
still my horse.
R.I.P. Nevada. You've crossed
Rainbow Bridge now. May your soul run free forever again like in the wild.
My candle is shining for you and it will never go out. I love you and miss
you, girl. When I hear thunder, I know it will be you running with the mustangs.
Tail and mane wind-blown, hides gleaming in the setting of the sun. Because
to tame a wild heart, is to free your soul and fly...
Nevada Esperanza 
