Welcome to the inaugural post to welcome Thistle and this future project to Jasper Mountain! Thistle has now been with myself, Jasper’s Equine Program Coordinator just a little over two weeks now. I picked her up from the rodeo grounds in St.Paul after she and the other competitor horses were brought over from the holding pens in Hines, Oregon. I plan to try and summarize our time here in a weekly blog post but, please check the facebook link below for more media and more frequent posting.
A little about our girl Thistle : She is approximately two years old and a South Steens HMA area about 70 miles outside of Burns, Oregon. She was born into the wild in the back country of the HMA (herd management area) to a long time range present mare, Velvet. Her sire, Wicasa has just began developing his own band in the last few years, so most of his foals are young – Thistle being one of them. Please follow along as I begin to introduce our Safe Center and JMC kids to Thistle and use her as a guide to helping children understand empathy, self reflection, dedication and perseverance.
This is a completely new concept of equine therapy than Jasper has ever used as an approach before but, it made sense to me the distinct correlation between children who’ve experienced traumas and wild horses. I was talking to my boss not long ago and was explaining this Teens and Oregon Mustangs challenge to her in my best “non-horsey” terms. The best way I could correlate things was, mustangs often come from the wild like our children in our programs can. They have lived an alternate life and have been in survival mode potentially most, if not all their lives. Sometimes this new environment comes with over stimulation, and excitability and negative behavior in self defense. My goal, is ultimately to show children who need some understanding and love, as well as Thistle that even with a rough beginning, all things can bloom into something beautiful.
The guidelines of this challenge are as follows: Everyone is grouped by age and ultimate goals with your horse. Example, There is an adult riding division, teens riding, Adult and Teens in hand as well as a few others. Each handler has approximately 100 days to complete and train a variety of skills that will be needed for competition requirements at the end of that 100 days. Ideally, you want to prepare your mustang to be happy and adoptable as well in that timeframe so, above and beyond the basic requirements are always encouraged. Once the competition is complete, the horses are online and live auctioned to BLM approved bidders who will make them an excellent new owner. Thistle will be completing in the “Teens and Adults in hand” division. While it’s sad to see Thistle find potentially a new home at the end of this challenge after all our hard work, I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned with every horse I bring home in the future. They’ll all have different quirks and personality issues and those will all be amazing teaching moments for everyone watching and learning in this time.
Again, Thistle is a part of the Teens & Oregon Mustangs Challenge and she will be up for adoption in September. How to bid on Thistle or, how to meet her in advance will be available in an upcoming post!
Thank you for following along and supporting us in this new challenge! All of Thistle’s information can be found at : The Thistle Project Here on our website or on our Facebook page : Thistle of The South Steens, Tag 8146
