Why Adopt a Mustang? Meet Emily Beam and Mouse! A 4 Year Old Bay Gelding Gentled by Cayla Stone

Hi, I'm Emily Beam and this is my new Mustang, Mouse. Mouse was actually a part of a study that Wild Rose did, funded by Temple Grandin, looking for best practices on how to start Mustangs and turn them into incredible riding horses and partners for people. Three weeks ago, I just got feedback from BLM that my application was approved. So, really recently and he's still pretty early in his training. He's been saddle started and he's moving along and progressing really well with that, but he's a little bit earlier on in the process. He was with Kayla and Wild Rose and I was really interested in hearing from Kayla about what she was doing with her horses. I come from an English background, so I really loved the idea of bringing Mustangs into the English world and kind of proving that they have what it takes to do well there. In the process, she introduced me to what was at one point Remus, he's now Mouse. I won't say it was love at first sight, but getting to work with him and getting to earn his trust was an incredibly rewarding experience. I'm so grateful that I kind of told her this is what I'm looking for and let her point the direction and tell me, you know, I think this would be a really good fit for you if you put the effort in. And that effort, actually, it was pretty straightforward. It was literally just spending time in the pen. Cookies are a really big, really big part of that and just kind of getting to know each other in a very slow and like balanced way where I felt like it was autonomous on his part to decide to like invest in me, which I really liked the idea of that. I believe him to be four years old. One of the things that I really like about him is thus far we haven't really had to correct very many behaviors. It's been a pretty straight shot. If anything, he's pocket curious, which I don't mind. He likes to investigate with his mouth, which I think is great. It shows that he's got some spirit and I like a horse with curiosity. I think that we all come from a lot of different backgrounds in the horse world, so sometimes there are things that can feel unattainable just because that's not your background. But I think that mustangs are a lot more widely attainable than you would think, especially when you find the right person working with them. I've been really grateful for Kayla and the way she's really kind of opened up what I thought was this really tough nut to crack, which is gentling mustangs and finding good homes for them. She makes it look incredibly easy and I just feel really grateful to have found that. I think that that's a really important component to getting into the world of gentled mustangs and I think that I'm very grateful for that. I think for one, as someone who does work in the American West, it's a massive ecological crisis, both for land managers, land owners, and the horses themselves. So just knowing that you can really contribute to the alleviation of a pretty large issue in the West is, I think, a really important component to thinking about, you know, adding a horse friend to your family. The other thing I would say is just to know how incredibly versatile they are. I feel like mouse with this kind of training really could go anywhere from here in terms of discipline and so just knowing that they really can do well in such a wide variety of spaces that maybe might not seem like a traditional fit for a mustang. That's a great question. I have an English background and I really like riding hunter jumper. I like practicing dressage, but I actually mainly got him to help me with my field work. I'm a wildlife ecologist and he is going to help me do non-invasive methodology in the backcountry. So a lot of it will be like endurance riding in the backcountry where I need a horse that can think on its feet and that I can kind of have a really dependable bond with. I think I was pretty surprised with mouse. I think because he's still in training, I'm obviously still aware that he's still learning, so it's not like he's ready for me to go loosey-goosey on him, but I brought my very non-horsey spouse out to meet him and mouse just took such good care of him in terms of like there were no antics. He was very sweet and gentle and I felt like at that point he was a horse that kind of not necessarily could hold his own, but that could deal with being around people and that could be a good partner for a human. I'm really grateful to have found Kayla through this process. I think that it would be a very different experience without someone who has such an amazing like gravitas in this space and in this niche of bringing mustangs into like English disciplines and also just being such a kind horse woman. There's lots of horse people that aren't people people and so I'm really really grateful that Kayla is so warm and welcoming as well, which has made this process that much easier and her skill set and expertise is just I have it's unmatched.