Sometimes horses, like people, need a leg up in life. That’s where Joe Misner comes in. Growing up in Alaska for much of his boyhood, the creator and director of the Wild2Ride Academy is no stranger to wild country. These days, in Missoula, Mont., he is offering the only wild horsemanship certification program of its kind anywhere in America.

While appearing as a panelist at the EQUUS International Film Festival four years ago in Billings, Mont., he heard about a horse facing a dire plight. The owner of a green-broke BLM Mustang was leaving town, and with winter just around the corner, he threatened to abandon the hapless colt in the mountain wilderness if someone didn’t come up with a better solution.

For a horseman who likes to live by the motto, “Come on and let me show you,” solutions are easy.

Misner was just starting to work with Melinda Corso and Montana Reins of Hope (MROH) when Janet Rose came to them for help. Rose was organizing a benefit for a local rescue, Horse Haven Montana, and told them how a foster option for the colt, Dante, had proved temporary.

“At that time, Montana Reins of Hope was still early in its formation,” says Corso. “Taking Dante in really solidified MROH’s commitment to the American Mustang.”

Horsemanship That Creates Second Chances

Creating second chances for wild spirits—both horse and human—is what Misner has been doing for the last decade. That has included connecting horses with high-risk youth; working with Wounded Warrior veterans and Mustangs; and offering Rio Cosumnes Correctional inmates in Sacramento, Calif., a certifiable skill after their incarceration while giving wild horses a chance to earn release from their own federal pens.

Misner discovered during his West Coast horsemanship clinics that people wanted to learn what he had to teach. But unless they went to jail, they weren’t finding his unique curriculum.

That’s how the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center Wild Horse Program, developed with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department (one of only five such horse/inmate programs in the country), became the model for the curriculum now offered by Wild2Ride Academy at MROH.

Misner’s program in Sacramento County honed a successful wild horse gentling approach through retreat-pressure-release, which works with an untouched horse’s natural instincts. It also incorporates leadership horsemanship training for people, based on what he calls the five C’s: Calm, Confident, Caring, Clear and Consistent.

And Dante? As MROH’s first rescue horse and four-legged instructor, he has a forever home.

“Dante started it all,” says Corso, who has brought more than 25 years’ experience in children’s mental health and education to her role as Director at MROH. “We can make this world a better place for horses and humans through quality equine education programs that focus on building relationships with horses on a foundation of trust.”

That’s why Misner, considered one of the premier Mustang trainers in the country, is there.

Cross-Fit, Ranch-Style

A veteran of 16 Extreme Mustang Makeovers, with nine Top 10s, and 2014 NORCO Extreme Mustang Makeover champion (with Kenai), Misner has built a 90-day wild horsemanship certification course progressing through six levels.

After completion of a level, students earn a Wild2Ride Academy certificate. At the end of 90 days and all six levels, they are fully certified in the skills necessary to train wild horses.

The name, Wild2Ride, comes from Misner’s experiences in Mustang makeovers since the early days, and from firsthand experience.

“I’ve worked with ‘wild’ men and horses,” he says. “I’ve watched guys who have gone through lots of failures find something to feel passionate about in horses. Here, we teach from the ground up: with a pitchfork, cleaning stalls. I like to call it ‘ranch cross-fitness!’” All joking aside, the program has proven to be transformative for the living creatures that go through it.

“It’s life-changing for everyone,” says Misner. “You can get an organic transformation.”

Wild Horse to Rider Hours Ratio

It starts with his thought-provoking wild horse hours to rider hours ratio.

“Over a year, a horse runs wild for 8,760 hours,” says Misner. “In comparison, 90 days in training adds up to just 60 hours of human interaction.”

That’s 8,700 hours of wild left in an animal apt to behave more like a deer in horse clothing. Take for example a 14-hand, 3-year-old Mustang mare that Misner watched clear a 3-foot fence from a standstill as easily as any whitetail.

“Horsemanship with wild horses is a lot of oxymorons,” he says. “You learn to stay calm but are ready for chaos.”

His 90-day wild horsemanship certification program is also unique in its freedom from traditional semester formats. Applicants do not have to commit 90 days all at once. Like the training approach they hope to learn and apply to horses, students go through the program pressure-free, learning at their own pace.

“One of the most important things about this program is its flexibility,” Misner explains. “You can start any time. You can stop at any point and then come back for more. You can come for a week at a time.” For students learning how to relax a wild horse, it helps to show them they’re not under pressure either.

Riding Forward

Misner is excited to see more students scheduled to enter Wild2Ride Academy through the rest of this year. Two Academy graduates, Hayden Sunshine Kunhardt and John Sullivan (who left a job with the U.S. Forest Service to learn wild horsemanship), have come on board as full-time, paid assistants.

Misner estimates that since 2019, Wild2Ride Academy has seen two dozen burgeoning trainers enter the program and eight complete the full Academy, despite the pandemic.

“I know it sounds crazy, but COVID really got us going,” he says. “It’s been fantastic. People’s lives changed and more of them than ever want new and better connections.”

That’s on top of the hundreds of horses and inmates he estimates he has helped over his five years working with Sacramento County.

“My dad had a saying, ‘Aspire to inspire before you expire,’” he says.

It’s not something the quiet horseman brings up in casual conversation, but the courage and tenacity his own father displayed in life made an indelible imprint.

While born in Minnesota, 57-year-old Misner recalls how his father chose to take his family home to his own roots in Alaska. Misner was still a boy when his father, a heavy equipment operator, sustained a grievous spinal cord injury in an accident.

“My dad is my inspiration,” says Misner. “He was a veteran, and I saw what he went through as doctors held his spine together, as he went into rehabilitation to learn to walk again, and to hold his body upright. He showed me how you can do anything. To keep moving forward.”

A Horse Named Mohican

Another lesson about tenacity came from a “plain brown wrapper” of a Mustang, one of the last to go down the chute and into a BLM pen, who Joe nicknamed Mohican.

Reno, Nev., was where Misner was headed in 2009 to find his second Extreme Mustang Makeover project. He’d finished reserve champion with a horse named Laredo in the previous year’s Western States Mustang Challenge, and 16th nationally. Misner was feeling pretty good about his “formula” for training wild horses within limited timeframes as he stood along the pen watching a new herd of candidates emerge from a trailer.

But it got off to a horrific start. The horse he intended as his makeover candidate “ran right into the fence and broke its neck.”

Next to go was a 5-year-old gelding, taken from the wild a year previously and kept in a holding pen ever since, who was Misner’s resentful replacement. The horse was Mohican.

“He charged and grabbed my chest and front of my shirt as if to say, ‘I have four legs and teeth, and I’m not afraid to use them,’” recalls Misner. “‘Don’t tell me anything. Ask.’”

He had exactly 90 days to ask Mohican for a makeover and to travel from California to Texas to compete together.

For 59 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes, Mohican didn’t offer much progress. On Day 60, Misner mounted up and started riding in the round pen, but couldn’t get the horse that had once galloped free across the prairie to break into a trot.

“I tried one little spank,” he recalls. “He blew up, rolled over on me, and this time, told me if I ever tried that again he’d squash me like a bug.”

With not much progress to show for those last 30 days, Misner resolutely loaded Mohican and began the 1,200-mile trek to Fort Worth. If he was lucky, he imagined the recalcitrant Mustang would only humiliate and not hurt him in front of all those spectators in the Will Rogers Equestrian Center.

“I purposely entered the Intermediate division,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting much.”

Misner certainly wasn’t expecting what came next. If Mohican saw him as one terrible, two-legged predator, the Mustang’s eyes pretty much popped out of its head when he realized there were thousands of such predators outnumbering them in Fort Worth.

“He stayed glued to me,” Misner recalls.

Maybe it was Mohican’s “come to Jesus moment,” but it worked. Man and Mustang finished 8th nationally, while also performing a freestyle Misner could never have predicted with this horse: “It included jumping over a barrel while holding a flag in one hand!”

In the happiest of all endings, Mohican was purchased at the auction following the competition, raising money for the Mustang Heritage Foundation and finding a forever home.

“I told the woman who bought him that he was very … particular,” he says.

Roses From a Devil’s Garden

Horse Illustrated caught up with Misner the same day he was preparing to welcome five new U.S. Forest Service Devil’s Garden Mustang mares—with foals—to MROH.

Named for a 500-square-mile patch of dense brush and jagged stone so inhospitable only “the devil himself” would plant a garden there, the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory lies within Modoc National Forest outside of Alturas, Calif. According to the USDA and U.S. Forest Service, Devil’s Garden is the largest wild horse territory managed by the U.S. Forest Service in size and wild horse population.

“Devil’s Garden Mustangs have proven their adaptability, trainability and versatility since our first adoptions in 2018,” says Misner. “None of this would be possible without Reins of Hope and its 400 acres that house the facility and program. It couldn’t be done without them.”

It allows Misner and Wild2Ride to keep dreaming bigger and better, including filing for nonprofit 501(c)3 status and launching a fundraising campaign, because “we sure need a covered arena during these Montana winters.”

Mustangs need help, too.

“I know I can make a difference,” says Misner. “Mustangs gave me a master’s degree in empathy for horses, and for trying to do better, every day, with what I have to give.”

This September, Misner and his wife of 30 years, Missy, plan to compete a pair of 3-year-old BLM fillies in the Extreme Mustang Makeover in Fort Worth. A teacher for over 20 years, Missy is also curriculum co-creator of the Wild2Ride program.

“She’s been a huge inspiration in my evolution as a natural horseman,” says Misner. “Without her, I’d be a broken-up old bronc rider, for sure.”

Follow Joe and Missy, Wild2Ride, and the Devil’s Garden Mustangs at Montana Reins of Hope (available to forever homes after 90 days training) at www.montanareinsofhope.com and on Facebook @Wild2Ride and @MontanaReinsofHope.

This article about Joe Misner and his wild horsemanship certification program appeared in the October 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Joe Misner and His Wild Horsemanship Certification Program appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

California is famous for Silicon Valley and world-changing technology, but not everything in California smacks of the 21st century. Deep in the Tehachapi Mountains of Central California alongside acres of giant wind turbines that provide electricity for thousands of residents throughout the state, there are living remnants of old California: the Oak Creek Horses.

The history of these nearly 100 wild horses—who are only seen in the colors of black and seal brown—begins in late 1800s, when cattle ranches dominated the Central California landscape. The largest cattle operation in the state, Tejon Ranch, was in Kern County, location of the Tehachapi Mountains and just 15 miles from the Oak Creek Horses’ current home range. The Tehachapi Land & Cattle Company was established right in Tehachapi, while the Bear Valley Ranch was in a 3-mile valley nearby. All three of these ranches had something in common: Each operation used Morgan horses to work their cattle.

History of the Oak Creek Horses

Take one look at an Oak Creek Horse and you can see a connection to the Morgan breed. Compact and muscular with short backs, round hindquarters, and strong heads with short ears—these are traits of the western working Morgan that proliferated Kern County cattle ranches in the 1800s and are evident in today’s Oak Creek Horses.

Although the exact origin of the Oak Creek Horses is not known—DNA tests on a small sampling of the herd were inconclusive—some experts believe the horses are descended from a group of black and brown Morgan horses that went missing from the records of the Tehachapi Land & Cattle Company, owned by Morgan breeder Roland Hill, in the early 1900s.

Morgan horse historian Brenda Tippin notes that six mares and five of their accompanying foals disappeared from the ranch’s records only two years after the horses arrived in Tehachapi from Texas, where they lived on a vast Morgan breeding ranch owned by Richard Sellman.

“When one considers that these mares came from running free on the vast ranges of Sellman’s Texas ranch and were turned out in California on Roland Hill’s equally vast ranges adjoining the Tehachapi mountains, it seems a likely possibility that some of the mares and colts may have escaped and were not recovered, and perhaps a few survived to form their own band,” Tippin wrote in 2015 in The Morgan Horse magazine in an article about the origins of the Oak Creek Horses.

The Horses’ Discovery

Residents of Kern County had been seeing the mysterious Oak Creek Horses for decades, grazing on hillsides and roaming through Oak Creek Canyon. It wasn’t until 1986 that the herd’s current manager, Diana Palmer, discovered these special horses living on land owned by a cement company.

“My husband Steve and I left the Los Angeles area and moved to Oak Creek Canyon in October of 1986,” she says. “We were contracted in Tehachapi as property caretakers for a landowner. We patrolled the property on a regular basis, maintained fences and roadways, and secured the property from trespassers. We would always see the wild horses roaming throughout.”

Over the years, Palmer noticed the herd size increase dramatically while the land become overgrazed.

“We noticed the horses were losing weight and were generally in poor health,” she says. “After meeting with the landowner about the horses and explaining the situation, we asked about managing the herd, and suggested we could try to catch some and find them homes.”

Palmer’s employer agreed. But helping the horses was not that easy. At first, the horses were too wild to accept Palmer’s offers of food.

“In the beginning, the horses wanted nothing to do with people, and they wouldn’t eat the hay we put out for them,” she says.

With the help of an old domestic gelding that was turned loose with the herd, the horses learned to trust people and eat the hay that was brought to them.

“We would take the gelding a flake of alfalfa from time to time,” Palmer says. “Eventually, a stallion in the herd came over to see what the gelding was eating. There was snow on the ground and not much forage.”

The horses began eating the hay, and soon came to rely on it.

Palmer’s management of the Oak Creek herd began in 2002. Nearly 20 years later, she is still watching over them, keeping the population to manageable levels and providing alfalfa during times of drought.

Palmer’s goal is to keep the herd down to a size that natural grazing will support. This means gelding the colts and finding homes for some of the babies that appear each spring.

“There is no set number of horses to adopt out each year,” Palmer says. “People who are interested in adopting one of these horses come and pick one out in the field. Then, when the horses are in the vicinity of the catch pen, we focus on catching that horse.”

Palmer screens potential adopters to make sure the horse will be going to a good home. Dozens of Oak Creek Horses have been adopted by local residents over the years, and some also live in other parts of California.

The Horses Today

Not surprisingly, Oak Creek Horses make incredible mounts. To help bring this truth to the attention of the local community, Palmer and trainer Jeremy Dunn hosted an event called the Vaquero Heritage Trainers’ Challenge in 2014 and 2015. The challenge was meant to showcase the horses’ disposition, temperament, and trainability.

The challenge offered local trainers an opportunity to select an Oak Creek wild horse to work with for several months and provide the horse with a solid foundation. The goal was

to display the trainer’s ability and the horse’s innate talent. Oak Creek Horses proved they could work in dressage, driving, and western disciplines, and negotiate an obstacle course.

While the challenge brought attention to the Oak Creek Horse’s natural abilities, those who have adopted these horses have been using their mounts in competitive events for years. Working equitation and competitive trail riding are two sports where Oak Creek Horses are regularly seen in Southern and Central California events. Of course, recreational trail riding is the activity of choice for Oak Creek Horses, who grew up in the hills of California.

Today the Oak Creek Horses are the unofficial mascots of the city of Tehachapi and are known and loved by many of the residents. The herd has become synonymous with the area, and even appears in a Southern California Edison television commercial highlighting the Tehachapi Pass wind turbines.

With the help of local veterinarians and other volunteers, Palmer continues to care for the Oak Creek Horses, providing supplemental hay, gelding colts, and finding homes for some of the younger horses. With Palmer’s help and the continued support of the residents of Tehachapi, the Oak Creek Horses will continue to live and thrive in their mountain home.

This article about the Oak Creek Horses appeared in the March 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post The Oak Creek Horses of California appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

1. Time: “There is no substitute for time invested,” MacDermaid tells her clients. “You will get back what you put in.” She suggests you plan to spend a minimum of one hour a day, five days a week, training your Mustang.
2. Consistency: It’s important to commit to handling Mustangs daily or they will revert back to being a feral horse.
3. The Right Facility: The BLM requires a 6-foot fence and a strong 20×20 pen.
4. Patience: Take your time and don’t get frustrated if the horse doesn’t respond to you right away. It can take a few weeks before a Mustang starts to come around to the idea of being around people.
5. Gentleness: In her experience, MacDermaid has learned that it doesn’t work to try and muscle a Mustang. “Force does not work well with these animals,” she says. “Natural horsemanship techniques work best.”
6. Humility: It’s OK to seek help from a professional if you get stuck. There are a lot of Mustang trainers who are happy to help!

Find Your Kind of Mustang

The public lands where Mustangs roam freely are divided into Herd Management Areas (HMAs) under the supervision of the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

MacDermaid has found that different HMA herds tend to have shared characteristics, so when looking for a horse for a for a specific discipline, she keeps the following sources in mind:

• Salt Wells and Divide Basin herds in Wyoming

  Draft influence; suitable for ranch and working horses.
• Triple B herd in Nevada
  Leaner with a lighter build; level-headed, quiet trail horses, ideal for first-time adopters.
• Cedar Mountain and Four Mile herds in Utah
  Taller, leggy horses; great for fox hunting, eventing and dressage.
• Chloride Canyon and Tilly Creek herds in Utah
  Smaller, pony-sized Mustangs for younger or smaller riders.

For more information, visit www.blm.gov/whb.

Read more: Out of the Wild Part 1: Mustang Matchmaker

This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Do You Have What it Takes to Train a Mustang? appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.