Return to Freedom (RTF) celebrated Spirit’s birthday on Saturday, May 10, as part of the Opening Day of its 2025 program season (Spirit’s birthday is May 8).

“Spirit” co-director Lorna Cook and one of the film’s animators, Peter Paul (“Moana,” “How to Train Your Dragon”) spoke at the event, which attracted more than 300 fans from across the United States and from Brazil, Canada, Australia, Poland and England and raised funds for the more than 460 rescued wild horses and burros in RTF’s care.

“I was weeping listening to some of their stories,” said Neda DeMayo, founder of RTF, a national nonprofit wild horse and burro advocacy organization. “This movie and this horse have meant so much and been so transformative in so many lives! At one point, as staff led Spirit back up to his pasture, people from all over the world sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to this very special horse who carries their dreams of a free and kind world.”

DreamWorks Animation chose RTF’s sanctuary, headquartered in Santa Barbara County, California, as Spirit’s home following his time as the animators’ model for the 2002 film.

The “Spirit” filmmakers searched for a horse that embodied the characteristics of the iconic wild mustang. They selected Spirit, then called Donner, a young colt born to a stallion and mare captured by the Bureau of Land Management on the Kiger Herd Management Area in Oregon.

The filmmakers chose Spirit because of his beautiful conformation, wide-set eyes, and his thick, wavy and multi-colored mane and tail — a perfect example of genetically and historically rare 15th-century Spanish Barb horses. Animators observed him closely to create a horse character with realistic movements who could communicate without speaking.

In April 2002, after completion of the film, DreamWorks selected as a home for Spirit Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary in Lompoc, Calif. Fans continue to travel from all over the country and all over the world to meet the stallion.

Like the animated film, Spirit continues to inspire many to learn about — and advocate for — the wild horses and burros whose survival on our public lands remains in jeopardy.

For his role as an ambassador for mustangs, the EQUUS Foundation and the United States Equestrian Federation inducted Spirit into the Horse Stars Hall of Fame in 2018. RTF opened its American Wild Horse Sanctuary in 1998 on 300 acres among the rolling hills of the Central Coast. There, visitors can experience the diverse herds that represent the American Mustang, including descendants of Padre Kino’sSpanish Mission horses, the Iberian Sorraia-type Sulphur Springs herd, and descendants of the Choctaw Indian ponies that carried the infirm on the Trail of Tears.

RTF offers a variety of other scheduled programs at its Lompoc headquarters as well as a 2,000-acre San Luis Obispo, Calif., satellite location. Programs include tours, photo safaris, Family Day events, as well as special workshops. More information is at returntofreedom.org/visit.

About the Film

DreamWorks Animation’s film Spirit: Stallion of The Cimarron is a tale of adventure and friendship about a wild horse (voiced by Matt Damon as a narrator) that cannot be broken. It features a combination of hand-drawn and computer animation. The screenplay was written by a longtime figure in the wild horse community, John Fusco, and directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook.

“Spirit” was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. A song from the soundtrack, “Here I Am,” sung by Bryan Adams, was nominated for a Golden Globe. A Netflix spin-off series for children, Spirit: Riding Free ran for eight seasons and earned a Daytime Emmy Award. A feature film based on the series, “Spirit Untamed,” was released in 2021.

About Wild Horses and Burros

At a time when herds of wild horses and burros were fast disappearing on federally managed public lands, an outpouring of support led Congress to unanimously pass the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. It provided a measure of protection but failed to set up a real management plan for the future of wild herds. Congress assigned the task of managing wild horses and burros primarily to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The BLM has attempted to control population numbers almost entirely through capture and removal with helicopters — despite the availability of proven, safe and humane fertility control, which could slow herd growth and allow for more humane, on-range management.

In March 2025, the BLM estimated that there were 73,312 wild horses and burros on public lands it manages. Its goal is to reach a BLM-set “Appropriate Management Level” of no more than 25,556 total wild horses and burros across 177 Herd Management Areas in 10 Western states.

A total of 62,534 wild horses and burros now live not on the range but instead warehoused in government facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $101 million annually.

About Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation

RTF is a pioneering wild horse advocacy organization that has worked to preserve wild horses and burros through sanctuary, education, conservation and advocacy since 1997. RTF operates the American Wild Horse Sanctuary at two California locations. Since 1999, RTF has modeled the use of fertility control and other solutions there that can be implemented on the range.

— Edited Press Release

The post Return to Freedom Celebrates 30th Birthday of Spirit, Model for Beloved Animated Film ‘Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron’ appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

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!

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But when images and videos appear in the media showing herds being rounded up via helicopter, emotions run high. These are called “gathers,” and they occur when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) brings herds of wild horses into a smaller area so they can implement their fertility control treatment plan, which can consist of a vaccination that essentially renders the mare’s heat cycles unproductive.

No Room to Expand

The big issue between passionate supporters of the wild horses and supporters of the BLM is what seems to be dwindling acreage making it difficult for the wild horses to find enough to eat and drink. However, according to the BLM, the acreage isn’t shrinking—the population is outgrowing the land they have.

The difficult position for the wild horses is that the size of their habitat has not grown with time. The 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act says that the BLM can only manage wild horses and burros where they are found when that act was passed. This means that the land inhabited by wild horses in 1971 is the same range they can inhabit 52 years later.

Jason Lutterman, public affairs specialist with the BLM, says that because of this act, the BLM is not able to move horses to areas where they were not originally found back in 1971, and the BLM can’t use government funds to purchase more land.

“There are some public lands where the horses can be found, but those are not federally protected,” says Lutterman. “We have a large diversity of situations that we manage with our wild horses and burros.”

Wild Horse Population Spike

Currently, the BLM manages wild horses and burros in 177 herd management areas that cover 26.9 million acres of public lands across 10 Western states. As of March 1, 2021, the BLM estimates there were approximately 71,735 wild horses and 14,454 wild burros on these lands. This is in addition to the 59,007 (as of December 1, 2021) wild horses and burros receiving care on BLM off-range facilities.

In recent years, the wild horse and burro population has experienced a rather significant population spike. This has prompted more action in regard to gathers and fertility control treatments. If there is no oversight by the BLM, the agency believes that the herds could have a 15-20 percent growth rate, and based on numerous studies, the population numbers are susceptible to doubling every four or five years.

“The population spike is mostly due to the fact that [the BLM] has not been removing as many wild horses or burros, or doing as much population control to help slow that growth,” says Lutterman. “However, if the BLM had not been doing any management at all, this growth rate would be much quicker, thus getting unmanageable.”

Wild Horse Fertility Population Control Methods

Because of the nature of a wild horse, the majority of any vaccination protocol is done much differently than your standard domestic horse’s health care. Fertility control is handled mostly in one of two different ways: darting or catch and release. The BLM explains that each method is chosen based on a local level, because no two herds are alike.

“Whether a herd can be darted depends on different factors,” explains Lutterman. “Some main factors being if there are enough trained volunteers or BLM staff available to do the darting, or if you can actually get close enough to the horses or burros to dart them.”

Lutterman says that the herds that are close to major populations, such as in Reno, Nev., are already used to seeing people, so volunteers can get a little close to dart them. More remote herds can be harder to find, attract and dart, so they must plan for catch and release.

Once a herd is gathered, the horses are herded into corrals, much like cattle on a ranch, where they are given their immunocontraceptive vaccination and marked with a freeze brand that states the year the horse was vaccinated and the type of vaccine. This way the BLM can follow up with the correct booster at the correct time.

The BLM has mainly been using one of two different fertility control methods: immunocontraceptive vaccination or implant. The choice as to which method is used on which mares follows a line of factors, including what has been the current method of treatment.

◆ Oocyte Growth Factor (OGF): An immunocontraceptive vaccine; the BLM is seeking a one-dose vaccine that can cause long-term infertility for multiple years.

◆ Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP): An immunocontraceptive vaccine that requires a booster 4-6 weeks after the initial inoculation and annual booster thereafter to maintain infertility.

◆ GonaCon: Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antigen vaccine called GonaCon-Equine. It is injected first with a primer vaccination, then followed up with a booster 30 days after the primer. This particular vaccine can cause four to six years of infertility; however, research is very limited on this treatment.

◆ Intrauterine Device (IUD): Much like a human intrauterine device, the IUD that the BLM uses is a Y-shaped, silicone insert, but it’s specially designed for horses. An advantage to its use is that it provides effective contraception, so long as the IUD stays in the uterus. So far, it appears that it can work for several years. A disadvantage is that IUDs can interfere with an ongoing pregnancy, so they can only be used in non-pregnant mares. According to the BLM, more than 65 percent of wild mares are typically pregnant on any given day—and in some herds, the rate is over 90 percent—so the sheer number of mares that would be candidates for an IUD is a limitation.

The BLM works in partnerships with universities and the United States Geological Survey for research and development projects. The BLM has issued solicitations for research projects — including fertility control treatment — for the wild horses and burros in the past (most recently in 2021). Project proponents may submit unsolicited research proposals to BLM at any time, which are reviewed by a panel and recommended for approval based on funding and agency priorities.

Pros and Cons

The use of different immunocontraceptive vaccinations are controversial. As of press time, Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC), says her group has given 5,185 PZP treatments to wild horses in the past three years.

“We use the PZP vaccine because it creates an immune response in mares that prevents fertilization, but it doesn’t mess with their hormonal balance,” she says. “The reason we advocate for it is because it’s reversible and it maintains the natural reproductive hormones that drive wild horse behavior.

“Think of it this way: With domestic horses, we geld the stallions because we want to impact that behavior, right?” Roy continues. “But in the wild, we want the horses to maintain as much of that natural behavior as possible.”

Both Lutterman and Roy say that the fertility control treatments have not shown to have any effect on the natural state of the herd or in the livelihood of the treated mare.

“The mares are still cycling,” says Roy. “So there is no change in their behavior, and there’s always some change every breeding season, but nothing like the mares being mistreated or shunned.”

However, Roy states that in one study that was done on a very small population on an island, it was found that treated mares had less fidelity to their bands, so they would leave and join other bands.

“But here’s the thing: Is that because of the vaccine? Or the absence of the foal?” she asks. “Because as most moms know, if you don’t have a baby, you have more flexibility. It was one small study, but we’re seeing so many horses, and we know these bands, and we don’t see anything out of the ordinary in terms of their behavior.”

Ultimately, population growth or decline results from birth rates, survival rates, and movements in and out of a population. Wild horses are the descendants of domestic horses, and they have remarkably high birth rates for an herbivore of their size.

A recent study out of Oregon by Grant and colleagues showed a remarkably high pregnancy rate, even among 2-year-old female wild horses, with some herds shown to have over 90 percent pregnancy rates. Survival rates also tend to be extremely high; it is not uncommon for wild mares to live into their 20s.

“One of the ironic effects of fertility control is that it tends to increase mare longevity,” says Lutterman. “So even in places where nearly every mare has been treated, it does not lead to as rapid of population size declines as one might expect, which is why the BLM must still gather and remove excess horses to reduce overpopulation.”

The Adoption Option for Wild Horse Population Control

As part of the population control, the BLM conducts gathers where wild horses are herded together and taken to an off-range facility. There, each horse is freeze-branded with an identifying brand, given regular vaccinations (much like domestic horses are), checked by a veterinarian, and prepared for a transition to the domestic life.

“We try to find homes for every animal that we bring off the range, but unfortunately that’s not always the case,” says Lutterman. “Those horses are transferred to off-range pastures, which are large pasture facilities where the horses are turned out and cared for.”

These off-range pastures are mostly located in the Midwest and Upper Great Plains (Oklahoma, Kansas, et cetera), where the land is generally more productive and horses can graze the grassland. The BLM has a subset of these types of facilities, called Public Off-Range Pastures, with a dual mission of providing long-term care for the animals while also being open to the public to show how the wild horses live on the pastures as an educational component.

What’s Ahead

The management of the wild horse herds may always be a controversial topic between animal welfare groups and the U.S. government. It’s important to note that both parties understand the importance of the animal, but also the fragility of the environment, the importance of history, and the welfare of the horse.

“It’s important to manage appropriately, because there may be too much control,” says Roy. “It depends on the population. In a population where you’re trying to stabilize the growth, one thing you do is let every mare contribute to the gene pool before treating them. Some programs will dart young horses for two years to keep them from foaling for their health, then let them foal, and then start treating them again. Then each horse has the ability to contribute to the gene pool.”

This article about population control of wild horses appeared in the May 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Population Control of Wild Horses 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!

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