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It is 5:00 am on this cool November morning. I settle into my favorite chair with my warm cup of coffee and the November 2004 issue of Horse and Rider magazine. I wasn't prepared for what happened next. I picked up where I had left off, and began to read an article about the plight of the Nokota horse. The headline read, 'Between 1880 and 1940, ranchers and the National Park Service, which regarded the horses as undesirable "exotic" outsiders, killed or rounded up and sold most of them.' As I read the story of these unique animals, I felt an immediate connection. I read about their resemblance to the Spanish colonial breeds, such as Barbs or Andalusians, with large, kind eyes, broad foreheads, and thick manes and tails. Their heads are straight or slightly concave in profile. They are large-boned with thick hoof walls and rarely need to be shod. They possess keen intelligence and a calm, curious disposition. I knew that when I got my first horse I wanted a Nokota. I craved more information; I went to the Internet for answers. I was hooked, I read many testimonies from owners and all had something in common. A Nokota horse is unique in character, willingness, athleticism, sensible and CALM. To be continued... |
2006 Crystal Springs Nokota Horses |
Recently we watched the 2006 movie Flicka and the report written by the daughter struck a chord with us so we wanted to share it with everyone else. |
The stories we hear about how the west was won are lies. The history of the west was written by the horse. Where ever a settler left his footprint there is a hoof print beside it. Men came further and further west to stake their claim on the great American wilderness. But they encountered a strength that couldn't be tamed, wild horses - Mustangs. The settlers called them parasites that would strip the land and starve their own herds. They couldn't domesticate them so they destroyed them. Isolated and hungry they were on their way to disappearing from the face of the earth. Sometimes, when the light disappears an afterimage remains just for a moment. Mustangs are an afterimage of the West. No better than ghosts, hardly there at all. No one really wants them, not ranchers not city people, that's their destiny. Let them disappear once and for all along with all the other misfits, loners and relics of a wilderness no one cares about anymore. Lucky for us a few Mustangs survived, hidden away in the mountains. We need to protect them for they're the hope for some kind of living memory of what the promise of America used to be, and could be again. -Flicka |