Right: One-Eared Jack (South Steens HMA)
By Nancy Rynes (Autumn 2018)
We could hear horses snorting and jostling each other on the far side of the trees. Maggie and I had our cameras and telephoto lenses ready once the mustangs wandered out into the clearing. When they finally did, our shutters clicked like paparazzi taking photos of the British royals.
One of my absolute joys in being an artist comes from spending time in the field. Field work inspires me, energizes me, and helps me gather ideas to incorporate into new paintings. For me this usually means taking my trusty hiking boots, backpack, Nikon camera, and plein air painting gear and seeking out people, animals, and scenery that fire up my creative imagination. Here, while on a trip to southeastern Oregon, I had all three. This is the land of wild mustangs, huge ranches, cowboys, and breathtaking scenery. (Photo of the South Steens Wilderness and Roaring Springs Ranch, below).
The high drama of spring and summer were over for the mustangs. It was now autumn in the South Steens and the wild horses stayed focused on eating as much as they could, gearing up for winter. My companion this day was Maggie Rothauge, one of the "civilian" experts on South Steens wild horses. Maggie is arguably the most knowledgeable, non-government expert on these horses and she's been studying them for many years. She knows most of the horses by sight and follows them from season to season, tracking such things as which mares are with a particular stallion and which foals have been born that season. I felt especially grateful because she was taking an entire day out of her schedule to introduce me to as many bands of mustangs as she could find.
We started our day near the intersection of the Steens Loop Road and highway 205 south of Burns, OR. This area plays host to the Hollywood Herd. They've earned this nickname because they're more used to people hanging around and are not very shy about spending large amounts of time near the road. Because of this, they're usually extremely easy to photograph.
Later in the morning and early into the afternoon, Maggie took me further up into the mountains where the more-wild bands of mustangs called home. These horses were more shy and difficult to photograph, but with Maggie's help I was able to see a wide range of horses and colors:
The mustangs at higher elevations are a bit more skittish than their Hollywood Herd cousins. They tend to steer clear of the roads and often run off if they catch sight of anyone on foot.
As the day continued, Maggie showed me waterholes, salt licks, and other places where the herds tended to visit every day. We also saw a few heartbreaking scenes that reminded us that Mother Nature is the main factor driving the hardiness and health of the herd. The sad truth is that some of the foals born in a given year aren't hardy enough to survive in the wild and don't live long, even with a herd to protect them. We saw evidence of this very plainly and it sobered and saddened me to know there was nothing I could do to change the situation. Overall though, despite the lingering drought, the vast majority of the horses were in beautiful shape and looked hardy enough to face another harsh winter.
And in fact these horses needed to be hardy in order to survive here over the past few centuries. Not too far away, at Kiger Mountain, bands of Spanish Mustangs still roam the hills many centuries after their introduction. DNA testing has shown that the Kiger horses are direct descendants of the original Colonial Spanish Horses brought to California in the 1500s to 1600s. But the South Steens herd, about 50 miles away from the Kigers, is a bit of a mix. Here in the Steens we also see the remnants of Colonial Spanish Horses as well as appaloosas, palominos, and the famous pinto horses. The horses here are not "pure" anything, but that fact, and natural selection, makes them incredibly hardy. It's known that the Spanish Horses once roamed here too but over time, local ranchers, cavalrymen, trappers, and Native Americans let other breeds of horses loose to mix in with the Spanish. Over the last few centuries, locals have used this South Steens mixed herd as a source of stock for their ranches, and today, the Bureau of Land Management is managing this herd for its famous pinto colorations.
I was here not only to enjoy the energy, spirit, and history of our wild mustangs, but because I have an incredible attraction to the varied colors of pinto horses. Their bold patterns inspire me like no other horse color, maybe because my first horse was a pinto Choctaw Pony (more on Choctaws in another post). Here in the South Steens, some of the more famous stallions are beautiful pintos. Shaman is one very famous example:
My goal was to see and photographs as many horses as possible and gather reference material for a series of historical, Western-themed paintings that I have brewing in my studio. Maggie helped me surpass all of my expectations for the day. She brought some kind of magic with her -- the other times I'd been to the South Steens, I had seen at most 50 to 75 different horses on a given day. With her, that number was 150 or more. I learned that if I really want to get an in-depth view of a new place, it really does help to have a knowledgable, local person as a guide.
This time of year, some of the bands she showed me tolerated people better than I would have expected. OK, "tolerated" is a relative term. Wild mustangs aren't domestic animals by any stretch of the imagination and it's best to treat them as if they were wild elk or bison. Staying at least 25 yards away in the autumn is best, 50 yards or more is even better. That's why Maggie and I were using telephoto lenses. In the spring and summer it's a different story. When stallions are vying to steal mares it's best to remain in your vehicle. Wild horses are very fast, large, and potentially aggressive. Several times I've had stallions chase after each other and pause to fight within 20 feet of my parked SUV. I was glad to be inside my vehicle rather than out in the brush and unprotected, and that's why much of the wild horse photography I do in the Spring and early Summer is from the inside of an SUV. It's safer for me and less fear-inducing for the horses. Frightened mares will defend their babies just as viciously as a mama bear will. And stallions can be intense fighters when it comes to defending or stealing mares. Many stallion sport missing ears or huge scars from past battles, like One-Eared Jack who lost the top part of his right ear to another stallion:
Over the course of the next 6 hours, with Maggie's expert guidance I was able to see and photograph a record number of horses for me, gathering a ton of material for the next several months' worth of paintings. But even more importantly, Maggie gave me the gift of her knowledge of these bands of mustangs: their individual territories, their sources of water, locations of natural mineral licks, how they survive the winter, their daily habits, and some insight into how the BLM manages the herd.
Thanks to Maggie and the South Steens horses, more paintings like "War Paint" are in the works:
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