By Patty Wilber
Mary Ann Shinnick saw this newscast explaining that some wild horses of Placitas, that had been living on a reserve on the San Felipe Pueblo needed to be moved, but there was no clear cut place for them to go. She decided she needed to help out by adopting one.
She picked Sombra (formerly called Prince). His age was thought to be about two, and he was habituated to people, but had not been handled. He was a stud colt.
I agreed he could come here, but not until he was gelded! Placitas Wild was able to get that done, and after the requisite number of days to, um, just make sure, Roger and Mary Ann went to pick him up.
They backed up to a small pen, opened their trailer door, and handlers urged him into the trailer. Sombra was a bit distraught, but once he stepped out of the trailer here, last Wednesday, he seemed right at home.
7/10/19 Day 1. Mary Ann and Sombra. Curious but this was about as much human contact as he was interested in.
He did nicker for his old herd mates for a few days, but we have seven other horses here, including H, also a newcomer, also two years old and also gelded in April.
For the next few days, we worked on getting Sombra more accustomed to human touch and our activities around here. He has been finding it a bit unnerving that horses do not just stay in their pens–they get taken out, brushed, tied at the hitching rails, and ridden in the arena, round pen or on the trail. Sometimes they even trailer away. He hasn’t quite figured out that they then come back!
We spent time fiddling with ropes nearby, while ignoring him. He allowed us to move closer and eventually touch him with the ropes. Sometimes he’d get overwhelmed and move to another part of the pen in a hurry, but mostly he watched and accepted more and more contact.
By Sunday:
Halter on backwards as he was only comfortable with me on his left side!
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