The horse that changed my life

Horses are my passion. One horse however changed my life and made me realize that I need to be around them. I taught Sierra a lot, but I believe she taught me as well. When I first met Sierra, she was terrified of people and didn’t trust me at all. I was kinda the same way with people. I never opened up because I had been betrayed and hurt more times that I could count. Through persistence and a lot of hours on my part, Sierra slowly turned around.




Something that I constantly had to remind myself was that I couldn’t rush things with her. When introducing and teaching animals new things, especially horses you have to go slow and let the horse tell you when they are ready to progress. Every horse is different and Sierra was one of those horses that did things slowly which wasn’t a bad thing at all. Each week we would work on getting her used to new things and working on her manners. Some weeks we would work on getting her used to picking up her feet and picking the dirt up out of them, other weeks we would introduce her to things such as getting used to a lot of people moving around the barn and making loud noises while she was out of her stall. All of the hard work and dedication truly does pay off in the end. Sierra had come to recognize me to the point where she will follow me wherever I go and I find that when I’m grooming her she tries to groom me back. I get such a good feeling at the end of the day because I know that I’m training her into a great horse for someone.




In May, Sierra was sold to her new owner who plans to use her for western pleasure and reining. I received an update from her owner in the beginning of september and here is a picture of her free jumping on her own.

Meeting Sierra

On September 11th 2010, I took a trip up to Sussex NJ with Dr. Ralston and other research students in the program to pick up the 8 mustangs that were held aside for us at the auction.
Not having any experience at all with these kinds of horses, I was frightened but up for the challenge. Seeing all of the mustangs in the holding pens that were not bought made me really sad. A lot of the horses were very skinny and skittish.


Here are two of the eight mustangs that we adopted, notice how skinny they were before they came to Rutgers


The mustangs were loaded up into the trailer and taken back to Rutgers. Some of them took longer than others. See RU Koda trying to make a break for it.



Now came the fun part, picking the horse that you wanted to work with, naming him or her and starting the bonding process and taming and training them.

I picked a very pretty and frightened 2 year old filly with two white socks and cute ears. After standing outside her stall without her even approaching me I was a little discouraged but still determined. Every year the Young Horse Program has a naming theme for the horses that the students care for and this year the theme was Wild West. I decided to name the shy and frightened filly Sierra after the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range ( Si for short). The other horses names were, Koda, Annie Oakley, Sundance ( Sunny), Sassafrass ( Sassy), Levi, and Santana ( Tanner).


Sierra in her Stall at Rutgers for the first time

Working with a new horse who has never been introduced to people before is definitely a challenge and requires a lot of patience and dedication. Sierra was definitely a challenge to begin with because she didn’t trust people, moreso than the other mustangs that we had in the program. Gaining her trust took a lot of time and persistence. I would go in every week and stand outside her stall talking to her in a soothing voice, hoping that she would approach me. Finally after much persistance and a lot of patience Sierra finally became comfortable enough for me to touch her and give her scratches.

Sierra and I on October 24th first picture

I kept a monthly journal while working with Sierra on her progress and behavior. Here's one of the entries from the month of October

"The first week that Sierra was in the barn, she was still very jumpy and very afraid of people, though surprisingly not as fearful of objects such as the pitchforks and the muck buckets. Around the second week, Sierra allowed me to come up to her and start scratching her, but she was only comfortable with scratches on her neck. Over the next couple days, I came back and worked with her getting used to me and having my hands rub on more than just her neck. The hard work and time showed because now Sierra is now accepts being touched on her neck, withers, back, stomach, and her rump. Sierra and I are now at the point where when I stop scratching her she moves towards me as if to say, “Why did you stop?? Scratch some more!” Last week she was having problems with being comfortable on her right side, but now this week she does not seem to be bothered with me scratching and rubbing on that side at all. I am starting to work with Sierra with her getting accustomed to things (mainly hands) touching her face. She know lets me rub up to her cheek bone, but if I go any further she pulls away. I’m also working with her with having pressure put on her halter and a few times she turns her head towards the direction I’m pulling, but it’s still a work in progress"


Sierra doing a funny pose outside

From October on, Sierra and I had many adventures with disensitizing her to everyday surroundings in the barn and objects outside.


To see the other Rutgers mustangs click here http://rci.rutgers.edu/~ruhorse/2010-2011.html

Rutgers University, Mustangs and You

For the past three years The Rutgers Young Horse Teaching and Research program has adopted mustangs from the BLM and brought them to Cook Campus at Rutgers where they've been tamed and trained for about 9 months and then sold in the May to horse owners for the annual horse auction.


This was the first year however where only mustangs were used for the Young Horse Teaching and Research Program. In the past, Dr. Sarah Ralston ( head of the program) used draft-cross yearlings. The yearling program did so well at finding great homes for these horses, that Dr. Ralston decided to conquer one of the growing horse problems in the U.S. ----->Mustangs

Dr. Ralstons goal was to find good homes for these horses as well as break down the myth that mustangs were just as good if not better horses than the draft cross horses. There has been many misconceptions and rumors that have spread across the country about mustangs, mainly bad and Ralstons goal was to show the world that mustangs can be tamed and used for many horse activities and even compete.

I have been part of The Young Horse Teaching and Research Program now for nearly 3 years. I started the program working with a draft cross yearling filly called Glinda the Good Witch and continued working with her when she didn't sell at the Spring Auction in 2009. After working with her for another semester she sold at the Auction in 2010.



With Glinda in the Fall of 2009 Glinda munching on some grass



Staying on for another year with the program was probably the year the changed my life. Last year was the year that Dr. Ralston decided to use only mustangs for the program. There began my journey with the filly Sierra. Check out my next blog post to find out more out my journey with training Sierra.

For more information about the Young Horse Program at Rutgers : http://rci.rutgers.edu/~ruhorse/index.html