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WILD HEART MUSTANGS™
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There was a time when we could talk to the animals and they to us. We knew that we are all made of the same dust, that the Creator placed us here to learn from each other. Then we became afraid and forgot the universal language shared with bears and wolves, eagles and hummingbirds, whales and buffalo. When we do not fear but listen to what the animals say, we know that communication is not only sound shaped by different mouths, but also by gesture and deed, and that the universal language is love.
Carol Snow certified tribal artisan of the Seneca Nation of Indians 
Coming in April...Mary Miller Jordan's
"WHY ARE WE SO DRAWN TO MUSTANGS?" Scroll down this page to read more about Mary (MMJ) and her 4-legged family. Photo by Parrish Photography |
Madison Shambaugh is a 22-year-old horsewoman from Fort Wayne, IN and Telluride, CO. She specializes in gentling and training wild horses and exotic equines, with a focus on liberty and bridleless riding. Her involvement with the American Mustang has earned her the nickname, “Mustang Maddy.” She's also learning how to share her method with others as effectively as possible through her studies in communications at Purdue University. She plans to graduate in December 2016.
Madison took a deep interest in equine behavior from a young age. She began starting colts and training horses for the public as a high school student and in 2013 she trained her first untouched mustang. In 2015 she participated in the VA Extreme Mustang Makeover with a Mustang she called, “Terk,” who she later adopted. Here she earned the titles of Rookie Champion, Young Guns (Youth) Champion, Fan Favorite, and Overall Reserve Champion. Madison and Terk’s dazzling bridleless freestyle after just 100 days of training captured hearts around the world. Later in 2015, Madison was named the Colt Starting Challenge USA Champion Trainer at Durango, CO. During this time she also took on the most challenging of equines, a one year old zebra she calls “Zena."
Beginning in the summer of 2016, Madison will begin a tour across the United States and Canada with her liberty team of 3 previously wild mustangs, "Zena the Zebra," and a mule to share her unique training approach that has proven successful across species. For more information on Madison’s schedule, you can visit http://www.madisonshambaugh.com/.
Madison took a deep interest in equine behavior from a young age. She began starting colts and training horses for the public as a high school student and in 2013 she trained her first untouched mustang. In 2015 she participated in the VA Extreme Mustang Makeover with a Mustang she called, “Terk,” who she later adopted. Here she earned the titles of Rookie Champion, Young Guns (Youth) Champion, Fan Favorite, and Overall Reserve Champion. Madison and Terk’s dazzling bridleless freestyle after just 100 days of training captured hearts around the world. Later in 2015, Madison was named the Colt Starting Challenge USA Champion Trainer at Durango, CO. During this time she also took on the most challenging of equines, a one year old zebra she calls “Zena."
Beginning in the summer of 2016, Madison will begin a tour across the United States and Canada with her liberty team of 3 previously wild mustangs, "Zena the Zebra," and a mule to share her unique training approach that has proven successful across species. For more information on Madison’s schedule, you can visit http://www.madisonshambaugh.com/.
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Madison’s philosophy on training, and life, mirrors the principles that Wild Heart Mustangs™ and Mary Lainhart’s photography are founded on: appreciation, awareness, education, respect, body, mind, spirit and energy.
“…every horse and every human have a greatness inside of them…” – Madison Shambaugh “I see the intrinsic beauty of nature everywhere I look. Whether in the form of a tree or an animal or a human, its flaws as well as its finery tell the story of life. My photography celebrates each subject’s unique journey through life. Those pictures need no edits or touch-ups because the subjects are already perfect. “ – Mary Lainhart |
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THE DIAMOND WITHIN
by Madison Shambaugh |
Madison's first Mustang, Tuari, when she first adopted him.
Madison gentling Tuari, November 2013
Madison & Terk at the Virginia Extreme Mustang Makeover, March 2015
Madison & Terk's bridleless freestyle performance at the Virginia Extreme Mustang Makeover 2015
After the bridleless freestyle performance at the Virginia Extreme Mustang Makeover 2015. Photo by John LaBillois
Madison uses touch and assertive pressure during training to encourage the Mustang's respect for and trust in her.
This video of training sessions includes a desensitization exercise in which Madison lightly slings a rope over the horse's body.
This video demonstrates how Madison works with Takoda only one week out of the wild, with pressure and touch rather than a bridle to control him.
Madison's young zebra, Zena, takes a stroll with the Mustang cousins that form her adopted herd.
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I held my breath as I opened the trailer door. Standing off to the side, I peered through the crack between the door and the trailer frame. I could just barely make out the shadow of a scraggly, bay mustang seeing this new world for the first time, contemplating whether he should step off into the unknown or not.
I was right there with him. It was a frosty 10 degrees outside. Tears from the wind formed at the corners of my eyes and froze before they had a chance to run down my rosy cheeks. I was dressed in layer after layer under my Carhartt overalls to battle the harsh Indiana winter temperatures. It was November 2013, my 20th birthday, and I had just brought home my first ever Mustang, Tuari (“young eagle”). After hearing about a competition called the “Extreme Mustang Makeover” a few years back, I had known right away that I wanted to give it a try for myself. The EMM is a competition in which trainers have approximately 100 days to gentle and train a wild horse. What better way to prepare for the competition than to adopt one as a “test” try? I adopted Tuari online through the BLM. He was a gnarled looking bay gelding with the word UNTOUCHED written beside his name. I was his only bidder, and brought him home for $125. Tuari leaped off the trailer into the round pen, a tangle of half eaten mane and a typical “mustang” head that looked far too big for his body. I spent all day with him in the round pen. And the next day. And the day after that. Nearly eight hours in the round pen in the freezing cold on Day 1, and I still was not able to reach out and touch him. It was a very humbling experience - one that also had me questioning my abilities as a trainer. But Day 2, I celebrated a landmark achievement - his first human touch. It lasted all of about a second. By Day 3, I was able to halter him. After that, I was in more familiar territory and the training started to move right along. Little did I know, that first day in the round pen, that I would spend each of my next three birthdays there as well; with my 2nd Mustang Terk in 2014 and Takoda in 2015. I think it is now safe to say I am hooked! 
I am currently training Takoda for the LA Extreme Mustang Makeover March 11-12, 2016. I competed with Terk in the 2015 VA Extreme Mustang Makeover, and he led me to achieve the titles of Rookie Champion, Young Guns (Youth) Champion, Fan Favorite, and Overall Reserve Champion. Terk’s incredibly emotional, bridleless performance at 100 days out of the wild quickly won him fans around the world. Our freestyle performance was to the song “Diamonds,” by Rihanna. To me, the “shine bright like a diamond” chorus means to be the best that you can be by recognizing your true potential. I believe every horse and every human have a greatness inside of them that they can choose to develop. My work with Terk, then, was aimed at “polishing the diamond” he really was, so that everyone could see him shine–and shine he did!
The first step in bringing out the greatness inside your horse is simple: You must believe in them. Looking at Terk upon pick-up--a scrawny and shy little bay Mustang--it was hard to imagine such a transformation would be possible. But I believed in him with all my heart. My grandmother once told me something that she had read that has always stuck with me: “Think not ‘I’ll believe it when i see it’ but rather, ‘I’ll see it when I believe it.’” There are several studies that have been done supporting the power of believing, but that would be another article in itself!
The second criteria essential for helping a horse become all that he can be, is being able to see your horse for all that he is. You have to be able to look at a horse and see all his strengths and all his weaknesses. What is my horse really good at? What does he enjoy doing most? What does he find challenging? See your horse’s weaknesses and help him overcome them. See his strengths, and help him develop them into something really fantastic. Look at your horse and value who he really is, rather than trying to make him into something he is not. Recognize that the greatness is already inside him - he is already a diamond. Your job is simply to help him further develop his skills, or “polish the diamond within.” 
So how exactly do you go about evaluating your horse’s strengths and weaknesses? To begin with, I look at a balance of two qualities: Trust and respect. Most horses’ training problems arise from an imbalance in trust and respect. When trust is greater than respect, horses are often pushy and tend to bulldoze through their owners or turn to acts of aggression, such as kicking and biting. When respect is greater than trust, horses are often flighty, spooky, and overreactive. For this reason, I attempt to gain a relationship balanced on both trust and respect with any horse I work with, Mustang or domestically bred. The way I go about it is the same with each, but because Mustangs have been bred through natural selection, their survival instincts are heightened, making it more challenging to achieve this balance.
Mustangs and other wild equines have very little trust for humans. Even a domestically bred horse is naturally skeptical of humans as they are prey animals by nature. To gain a horse’s trust, I do desensitizing exercises. I’ll expose them to objects such as tarps, ropes, noodles, and anything else they may fear, in order to teach them the skills to survive in the human world, where they will need to think prior to reacting. I can’t possibly expose my horse to everything he will fear during his lifetime. But I can create a relationship with him in which when he begins to fear something, he trusts me enough to look to me for guidance, rather than handle it on his own by being reactive. This process generally takes much longer for Mustangs than domestic horses, who have usually been handled since birth and are selectively bred for traits that make them easy to work with. Mustangs, on the other hand, having been bred by natural selection, favoring traits that allow them to survive. For this reason, they have a tendency to be more fearful, because this is the very trait that has allowed them to survive in the wild. I gain my horse’s respect through gaining control of his body parts. I do this by teaching them to give, or soften, to pressure. Horses naturally fight pressure, but I feel this can be a heightened instinct for Mustangs. In the wild if they give to pressure, like a mountain lion grabbing them, they die! So fighting pressure is a serious survival mechanism they have developed, fostered by natural selection. One of the biggest mistakes I see trainers making is failing to give the horse a chance to respond to energy before adding pressure. If you never give your horse a chance to respond before adding pressure, you will never be able to communicate to your horse through just intention, or energy. This is what liberty and bridle-less is all about: Refining your language so that you can communicate through just energy. If you watch a leader among a herd of horses, they are able to move other horses’ feet in different ways, by just the look of an eye or a flick of the ear--without having to actually resort to physical pressure like nipping or kicking. My end goal with all of my horses is to get to the point where I can communicate by just my energy, with no actual touch of physical pressure. Additionally, asking with energy before adding pressure allows the horse to relax. This is especially applicable to Mustangs, who can become nervous with even very small amounts of pressure. If there is no warning preceding pressure, a horse can never relax because he never knows when pressure is coming. I label this aggressive pressure; pressure following energy I label as assertive pressure. Aggressive pressure is unfair and unexpected, causing a horse to be fearful and tense. Assertive pressure is fair and expected, allowing for a relaxed and trusting horse. 
Once you have mastered this formula, there are few things you won’t be able to accomplish with your horse as he begins to shine! Although it is more challenging with Mustangs, I find it much more rewarding. There is no experience quite like gaining the trust and partnership of a once wild animal. These Mustangs are so willing to be a part of human lives - they just need some guidance on how to go about it. Horses are naturally curious and inquisitive animals. They take interest in engaging with people.
I am certainly attracted to the American Mustang for the qualities they stand for, such as spirit and freedom. But perhaps one of the biggest reasons for my attraction to them lies in their potential for greatness that is so often overlooked. They have sadly been set aside as misfits as we contemplate what to do with their excess numbers. I find great joy in showing people the Mustang’s profound ability to be a loyal partner and an incredible athlete. I hope that in my work with Mustangs, people who have given up on their dreams will be inspired to find renewed faith in themselves as well. To those of us who have been told we are incapable of succeeding or have been deemed worthless by society, the Mustang has a message for you: WE ALL HAVE THE GREATNESS INSIDE OF US; IT IS UP TO YOU TO DISCOVER IT 
Madison with her three Mustangs: Tuari, Terk and Takoda
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A Short History of the
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Wild Horse capture via motor vehicle
Velma Johnston, aka Wild Horse Annie
Photo courtesy of Nevada Historical Society |
Coming in our April Issue:
WHY ARE WE SO DRAWN TO MUSTANGS?
by Mary Miller Jordan
Mary Miller Jordan with four of her Mustangs. From left to right: Ieft to right - Sueno (from Granite Range, NV), Magic from (South Steens, OR), Flying Colors (from Warm Springs, NV), and Silver Lining (from Silver King, NV). Photo by Parrish Photography
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Mary Miller-Jordan (MMJ) is partnered with a herd of 7 Mustangs that she considers her 4 legged family and mentors. Together they created I AM HERD, a non-profit with the mission to help others 'hear their own heart'. MMJ and her Mustangs won the title of America's Favorite Trail Horse as well as Supreme Extreme Mustang Makeover Reserve Champion. One of her Mustangs was immortalized as a Breyer Model Horse. She has written children's books featuring her Mustang partners and has been featured with her Mustangs on "National Geographic Wild". She currently teaches on-line workshops focusing on the horse human bond through what she terms "B ME" - Body Mind Energy relationship building.
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