(Hardcover; $26.99, 320 pp., with photos. Pub date: June 26, 2015)
In truth, this title could be applied to every last
remaining mustang in this country. The wild horse has been hounded, abused,
maligned, and mistreated for centuries now, and still is subjected to the most
horrific treatment by the agency in charge of its well-being. If ever an
argument against government intervention could be justly made, the US Bureau of
Land Management would be the poster child. Instead of protecting the mustang
herds, they have repeatedly caved to special interest groups, and allowed these
horses to be brutalized, all the while insisting that they are in fact helping
them. It would be almost funny, if there weren’t so many unnecessary casualties
involved.
The BLM has been overseeing the rounding up and adoptions of
mustangs, and has come under justified fire for mishandling of those tasks. On
the surface, adoption of wild horses and burros would seem to be a good thing. (The
book and movie project Unbranded utilized adopted horses for their trek across
the West.) But unfortunately, too many of the adoptions are either to kill
buyers or to well-intentioned but incompetent owners.
Samson was one particularly unlucky horse when Mitchell
Bornstein first met him. By then he had suffered six years of violence at the
hands of men who believed the only way to tame him was to beat him down. He had
been a six-year-old stallion, part of a large herd in Nevada, when he was
captured in a helicopter roundup that decimated his herd and catapulted him
into a world of neglect and abuse. His response was to fight first and ask
questions later. Samson is truly not one to stand by and take it. For that, Bornstein
can’t help but admire him. But the horse’s intense anger, fear, and hardened
spirit turn him into a lethal creature whose destiny seems clearly to be the
slaughterhouse.
Bornstein is not only a phenomenal horseman, but a
compelling and talented chronicler. His tale of Samson’s journey out of the
hell he was in and toward redemption is edge-of-your-seat writing. Working with traumatized horses is a specialty
of Bornstein’s, who is also a lawyer.
“Other than the fact that he could send me to my maker,” he writes of
his first encounter with the wild horse, “Samson was no different from any of
my legal clients: threatening, standoffish, and wearing a huge chip on his
shoulder.” As with anyone who is willing to put his life on the line to achieve
success, Bornstein is not lacking in confidence. And it is that confidence that
was imperative in dealing with a horse like Samson. His first meeting with the
mustang in a dark, dank and dirty stall, demonstrates this. Slowly, the horse
allows this potential enemy into his space, and even allows him to touch his
shoulder. There is a breakthrough then, but as Bornstein learns, Samson’s many
demons are always just beneath the surface:
“For perhaps the first time in his life, he felt something
other than the bullwhip’s lacerating blows, the lariat’s choking constriction,
and the pain associated with repetitive blunt-force trauma.
“Then, everything changed. Without warning, he leapt
straight up and slapped at the concrete floor with his right hoof, the sound of
it like a bolt of lightning cleaving pine. He spun around and shot out two
rapid-fire, dual-legged hind-end kicks at me, both missing my chest by inches,
the wind from them fluttering my shirt.
“He turned and stared, this time with the look of a man
about to turn into a werewolf. Get out
while you still can.
“I backed out slowly and slipped through the door. Samson
was still staring at me, breathing like Darth Vader. What had happened?
“Then I heard the sound of an approaching helicopter….”
Samson’s life in the wild was certainly not an easy one. As
a stallion, he was probably repeatedly challenged by other males, and had to
fight hard to keep his mares and his herd. But he couldn’t fight the
helicopters and cruel men with ear twitches, bullwhips, and other means of
torture. Fortunately for him, there was one person who was willing to risk
all—career, love, life—to save him.
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