Meet Wiley

This is my boy, Wiley. 

He's 6 years old, about 14.3 hands tall, and I've done everything with him. Wiley has given and constantly gives me the chance to apply what I know and learn even more (with help from a few people). I was the first person to touch him, first to halter him, first to get on him, and still the only one who has ridden him. 

I used to want to be a horse trainer and Wiley was my experiment. I no longer want to train horses for a living, but Wiley will always be the first horse I started. 

Wiley was the perfect training project because he's a mustang. I got him when I was 15, so my mom legally had to be the one to adopt him from the Bureau of Land Management. 

The picture above is Wiley's BLM brand. The first large symbol that looks like a backwards, handwritten four means that he was captured by and property of the U.S. government. After the first, the other markings are Alpha Angle symbols. The second grouping of one symbol on top of another is the year Wiley was born. The long stretch that looks like sloppy cursive writing is Wiley's BLM registration number. The last 4 symbols in that bunch of 6 represent the 4 numbers that are on the neck tag I.D. Wiley had on when he was being taken care of by the BLM. 

By the time we adopted him, Wiley had been in captivity for over a year (travelling from Nevada, to Nebraska, then to the Midwest) and the only human contact he had was getting vet care in a chute a couple different times. 

Here's what he looked like on his first day home: 

And in this picture I had had him for a year:

I'm so glad Wiley is in my life; being with him every day is a new adventure and his personality gets bigger and bigger. 

Did I tell you that Wiley's an incredibly good boy? In my opinion, he's smarter than almost every domestic horse I've known.

He also puts up with whatever I want to do... and that's a big plus!

What do you know about America's mustang horses? Have you ever had the chance to work with one? I'd love to hear from you!