Rayo Del Sol joins our herd!
Rayo arrived on December 3rd, 2018. By a crazy coincidence, the same guy who brought Denali and Dakota to Oregon from South Dakota years prior, also delivered Rayo that day. Doug Lake spent most of his time traveling the country and moving mustangs. He was dead a month later, while transporting another mustang (who was found safe), of an apparent diabetes complication. I was so grateful to have found him via social media, as the first transporter did not work out and we really wanted Rayo to come home!
I found Rayo online, and he is a BLM mustang, from the Triple B HMA in Nevada, born in 2016 approximately, so he’s now (summer 2019) about 3 years old. Rayo is tall!! He is huge and who knows how big he will get. This is the story.
I had been feeling we needed to add another gelding to the herd of 3. Yes, they got along great and were pretty happy at our friend Beth’s barn. We moved them in mid Sept and they had 8 acres to roam, a great barn with space for hay, some trees for shade, a hill to run up to, some bushes to protect them from the winds, a gorgeous view, and much more. But Dakota was bored and really needed someone to play with. I would have considered an older BLM mustang gelding, one with less chance of getting adopted (the older they are, typically the more difficult to gentle them, so the young ones are preferred), but I did not feel up to the skill level required, or the right space for that matter. Also, an older mustang may not want to play at all. He could create havoc among my small peaceful herd.
Rayo arrived and made himself pretty comfortable right away
Even with a young mustang I was taking my chances of course. Who knew what personality a horse would have? Todd and I talked about it, and he was in agreement, but neither of us wanted to push the situation. I was looking, but I wasn’t desperately looking. I figured that if a gelding wasn’t found, it would have to wait till the following spring. Then I saw Rayo, named Sol at the time, in a facility in AZ, being TIP trained. A TIP (Trainer Incentive Program) trainer is someone who gentles a BLM mustang, usually for 30 days or so, till the mustang is able to be haltered, lead, get in and out of a trailer, and picks up his or her feet (for the farrier). The Mustang Heritage Foundation created this, to bridge the gap between potential adopters/purchasers and mustangs housed at Bureau of Land Management (BLM) off-range facilities.
Everything I heard, read and saw about Rayo I liked. I saw lots of videos of him being gentled. Sol/Rayo seemed young and easy going, and the TIP trainer, Isidro Espinoza, did an amazing job at being calm, kind and allowing Rayo space to learn. I had to apply to the BLM to adopt Rayo. I was not nervous, but super excited as I had been wanting to adopt a BLM mustang for years…. it felt very special. I sent off my application and it was approved. I was so excited! I then paid my fee, and later received the paperwork from the TIP trainer, which included the original tag (all BLM mustangs are branded and tagged when processed. All males (stallions) are gelded. I could not wait to see him!
We had a little trouble finding a transporter due to the fact that it was November then, and some people did not feel comfortable driving out to eastern WA in snow, or potentially icy conditions. So we waited and I kept searching till I finally found Doug online, and he agreed. The weather cooperated and Rayo was on his way!
My intention was to keep him separate for a few days, so he could stretch his legs after a long trip and adjust to the new place and meet the gang through the fence. But who was I kidding? The moment he stepped off the trailer, the others came running, and he wanted to go hang out with them! So I let him!
First meeting. I left the sounds on even though all the chatting isn’t relevant, so you can get more of a feel for what happened during those first few moments.
I was able to lead him easily off the trailer and walk him into a small corral. We had closed off an area for him, and he did stay in it for…a few minutes? You can see the others coming over and smelling him. That was the very first touch. Then as Doug left and got the truck and trailer going, our original 3 horses took off…. Rayo was still in the corral…. Then we let him go.
By then we had opened up an additional 6-8 acres, so the horses had a LOT of space to run. The meeting and the next few days went very well. Dakota was over the moon! He was immediately so happy to have a friend to play with! Leilani was not so happy because she was in heat and wanted Dakota all to herself, so she followed them around a lot. But by and large, he merged easily. Months later it shifted, probably because of the lack of space where we moved them. But for now, they stayed here together for 2 months, and it was perfect.
Stunning backdrop to a peaceful herd
