Pryor Wild

Early on September 22, 2007, I saw a number of families together in a grassy area. Looking Glass was also nearby with his family.

As Teton and Mescalero’s families drifted closer to Looking Glass’ family, Looking Glass’ two year old colt started to move to them.

Teton’s two year old colt and colt foal came out as he approached, and the two year olds started to play.

Soon after this, Stiles, the bachelor who is always with Teton’s family, came out too. I’m not sure if he was thinking he needed to help Teton’s two year old, or if he just wanted to play. In any event, Looking Glass’ colt started playing with him too.

The noise accompanying this play brought two bachelors, Two Boots and Doc, out of the woods; and they joined in the playing too.

All of this action brought the stallion Mescalero up to investigate.

With that, Looking Glass’ colt tried to get Mescalero to play with him while Mescalero’s foal looked on.

Mescalero then drifted off, and Doc came back to play some more.

About this time, Coronado (Red Raven) moved his family into the area; and Looking Glass’ colt ran out to get him to play too.

It wasn’t long before Coronado returned to his family, and the closest stallion around was Two Boots. Two Boots is an older bachelor stallion, and I have noticed he isn’t really into playing. However, Looking Glass’ colt was very determined to get him to play. To provoke him, he bit onto his tail and kept pulling it. Notice how patient Two Boots is as he does this.

After a few minutes, Two Boots had enough, and he reached around and bit the colt. This was just what the colt wanted, and he tried to play with Two Boots.

Two Boots bit him a couple more times, and the colt didn’t have too much fun with this. I think all of the other stallions he played with were being gentle with him, but Two Boots just wasn’t in the mood after having his tail pulled. The colt called out to his family, they called back, and he ran to them.

By the end, Looking Glass’ colt had been playing for about 30 minutes. Watching this was great, and I think it was one of the most amusing things I have ever seen with the Pryor horses. Looking Glass has some excellent offspring, and I think that this daring colt will be following in their footsteps to become a great stallion.

Last week (sometime around September 16, 2007), a foal was born. The foal is a filly, and she is the daughter of White Cloud and his grulla mare. I got my first look at her yesterday when they came to water. She is black, and she has a small star.

The filly foal joins two other filly foals who were born earlier this season.

A few minutes after this, Lakota brought his family in; and White Cloud left. However, the new filly foal wasn’t wanting to leave yet. Her mom stood by as she cautiously approached the water. She had watched her family play in the water, and she seemed to want to play as well. All this amounted to, though, was her pawing at the mud at the water’s edge.

Her grulla mom then made her come so they could meet up with the rest of the family.

However, as they were leaving, Lakota’s colt and filly foals decided they wanted to play with the little filly.

Before the foals could play, though, they got pushed away by the grulla mare. I continued to stay at the pond to watch other families coming in through the afternoon. When I left, I got another look at White Cloud’s family above the pond.

The little filly was very playful, and she kept running to her family members while her mom followed behind. My last look of her that afternoon was her chasing White Cloud’s dun filly over a hill.

Today I had a great surprise - I saw Starbuck and his family. Starbuck has a mare and a new colt foal. Starbuck tends to be one of the more elusive of the Dryhead horses. I haven’t had much luck in seeing them all summer; in seeing the colt foal I have seen all of the 2007 foals.

Starbuck is a great looking dun stallion with a unique star.

His mare is dark bay with a star.

The colt foal looks a dark bay color now, and it will be really interesting to see what color he turns out to be.

While on the mountain on Tuesday (August 12, 2007), I noticed Morning Star’s family. However, I also noticed they had a new, unexpected addition to the family.

Morning Star is a dark bay stallion with a small star.

He has a dun mare who had a dun colt foal earlier this summer.

He also has a two year old grulla filly who is the daughter of Starman.

Lastly, he has a grulla roan mare; and this is the mare who had the new filly foal. The foal was definitely just a few days old; and the BLM field specialist figures she was born on the 9th. She is black, and she has a little star.

Shortly after Pierre died, another stallion did join his family. On Tuesday (September 12, 2007) I saw them.

The stallion that is now with the family is a dun. We call him Shane. Shane’s never had great luck with a family yet as he would always try for the families of strong stallions like Pierre and Conquistador. However, it is nice to see him get such a great family.

The rest of the family looked intact and in good shape. However, they were resting in a stand of trees; and so I wasn’t able to get any great photographs of them without risk of interrupting them. The only photograph that is even worth showing is one of the two colt foals and the two year old colt standing together.

If I am able to get any more good photographs of the family, I will post them as well.

Today I was told by the BLM wild horse specialist who watches the herd that the stallion Pierre had died. She gave me directions on where to find him, and I did get to see him. It looks like he died from a fall off of a cliff; why he ran off a cliff is a mystery but it could have possibly happened while having a confrontation with another stallion as Pierre had a large and desirable family.

Pierre was born in 1989, and he could often be seen in the area around Big Ice Cave. He was a fine black stallion with a star on his forehead.

One of my favorite times seeing Pierre was in June of 2006. It was a stormy afternoon, and he and his family had gathered in a small stand of trees. He just seemed very proud as he watched over his family there.

On another occasion, I remember watching his family when he bolted off to two bachelor stallions that were nearby. He chased them until they were no longer in sight at full speed, and then he ran back at full speed to make sure his family was still okay. Coming across Pierre and his family in the middle of a forest was also a fun experience as it was such a surprise. While I moved through that area, Pierre constantly watched me from in between the trees.

Currently, Pierre’s family consists of a grulla mare, a blue roan mare, a black mare, a black filly, a two year old blue roan colt, and two new colt foals. The last time I got a good photograph of the family together was on July 24 of this year, when they were grazing in a forest.

Pierre led a great life as a Pryor Mountain stallion, putting together a large and successful family. His legacy will be able to be carried on through the great offspring he has produced.

I haven’t been able to get time to catch up with all the horses I saw last Sunday. However, since I saw some of the main horses I wanted to talk about again today, I will focus on today instead of last Sunday for now.

This morning it was chilly and overcast, but we decided to try to get up on the mountain to see horses anyway. As we approached the Pryors, we could see clouds spilling over them.

As we got higher on the mountain, we entered the clouds and the visibility was very low. As we drove along, though, we did find our first horses of the day - Baja’s family.

Baja was standing guard while his family grazed and rested in the area behind him.

This year’s foals haven’t had to experience too much cold weather yet in their lives, and this may have been one of the colder times for some of them. Nonetheless, Baja’s dun filly and grulla colt seemed to be doing just fine.

As you can see, getting photographs of the horses was really hit and miss today. Getting the photographs depended on two things: How thick the fog was when I was trying to take a picture, and how fast I was able to focus before the fog changed and forced me to refocus. However, today was an awesome day for watching the horses as it was so surreal up there; and it was very difficult to find any horses at all.

Continuing on past Baja’s family, we noticed a number of grouse near the road.

By the end of the day we had seen quite a few grouse throughout the area.

I hiked to the pond to see if I could see any horses in the area or any fresh sign of them. I saw some tracks but no horses. It was still very surreal there as the visibility was so low and there were many sounds coming from the forest. I soon realized that the sound was that of the ice covering the trees as it slipped off and fell to the ground. Nearly all the trees and plants had a covering of ice on them. It didn’t look like frost; it seemed to be precipitation that had frozen to the vegetation.

Shortly after driving away from the pond, a family of horses ran across the road a distance in front of us. We also caught another glimpse of them as they ran closer by us. The sight was spectacular as they ran through the thick fog. Unfortunately, the fog was too thick and the horses were running too fast for me to get any photographs. However, I don’t think a photograph would have captured the scene very well anyway; it was the kind of thing you need to see in person to fully appreciate. From the brief glimpse, we were pretty sure who the family was, though.

We didn’t even try to find where the family ran to; we just continued on in hopes of finding more horses. The fog got even more thick as we drove on, and we only saw some more grouse.

Coming back, we caught a glimpse of some horses in a meadow.

As the fog cleared for a few minutes, we realized who it was. The family is with the bay stallion Santa Fe.

The family is composed of Santa Fe, a dun mare, a grulla mare, the grulla mare’s dun foal, and a two year old dun filly. These females are all beautiful, and they have quite a story.

I think the best place to start their story is last summer. I have mentioned a number of times that certain events have been tied to the stallion Teton getting injured. This one starts there as well. A reason he got injured is because he had put together such a large family. At that time, two of his family members were the dun and grulla mares that are now with Santa Fe. The dun mare is the mother of the grulla, and they have been very bonded even before Teton had them. After the dust had settled following the fall of Teton, the grulla ended up with Lakota while the dun ended up with her son Jackson (also the grulla’s brother) and his family.

Jackson and his mare had a filly foal last summer; she is the granddaughter of the dun mare. There is a definite resemblance between the two.

Earlier this season, it was apparent that this grandmother and granddaughter were no longer with Jackson. The initial hypothesis was that the two had somehow died. However, it was soon noticed that they were alive; and they had joined the grulla relative that was with Lakota. Thus, the dun mare, her daughter, and her granddaughter were then with Lakota. This spring, the grulla had her first foal, the dun filly, with Lakota.

At this point, it should be known how these four were with Lakota’s family. They were definitely a part of the family, but they always seemed to be a little distant and independent of the family as well.

This summer, Santa Fe somehow got the two year old filly. Shortly after that, the other three females came as well. Though there has been some interchange between the females with Lakota and Santa Fe, they are currently with Santa Fe. However, they are also maintaining their independent personalities. This was pretty apparent today. The dun mare is definitely very observant and seems to be a big part of the family’s leadership. We often joke that she is the lead stallion for the family. The rest of the females are very observant and cautious as well.

These four are again some of the most beautiful Pryor horses, and they have really interesting personalities. It will be great to see their story continue to unfold. As can be seen in the following photograph, they do care very much for each other, especially this new foal; and I think that this bond will carry them far.

After the great chance to see Santa Fe’s family, we continued on towards Penn’s Cabin to see if any horses had drifted down to that area. We did see Coronado (Red Raven) and his family in the area.

Driving back towards the pond, there was a big break in the fog; and the sunshine provided a great view of the iced trees.

Shortly after this, we also saw Flint coming out of the breaking fog; and he had a mate again.

Recall that Flint had a dun filly with him a couple weeks ago, but he wasn’t able to keep her for very long. It is our best guess that this dun filly is not that same one; we think she is the two year old daughter of Baja who had been with Morning Star’s family. When we saw Morning Star last Sunday, she wasn’t with him; and this seems to answer the question of where she was.

The two walked past us before once again disappearing into the reemerging fog.

With the new fog bank came more cold, and so we decided to head back down. As we went down, we saw Baja’s family again; and we also caught a glimpse of Chino’s family.

Chino is the only buckskin on the mountain. He has a beautiful dun and grulla family, but they tend to be elusive and wary of humans. As we approached, they started to move away; and so we left them alone. I wasn’t able to get many pictures in those few seconds, but I did get a fairly unfocused picture of Chino that at least shows his buckskin color.

After that, we only saw a couple deer. However, it was great to see the horses that we did; and it is exciting to see the changing of the seasons. With the cold seasons comes a whole new world of watching the Pryor horses.

Shortly after seeing Looking Glass’ family on the 2nd, Mescalero and his family came over the hill to water.

Mescalero is the son of Shaman. He is dun roan in color. As can be seen in his face, he is a very pretty shade of dun like his father. Mescalero does have very subtle primitive markings due to his dun color; his dorsal stripe can be seen here.

Mescalero still has his first mate that he ever had. When he got her a few years ago, he was the youngest stallion with a family on the wild horse range. She is a very pretty grulla filly who has not yet foaled. As can be seen here, it looks like she is starting to get her fuzzy winter coat.

Mescalero’s other mate is this black mare.

Last year when Teton got hurt and lost his family, Mescalero got this mare and her yearling grulla colt. The colt ended up getting adopted last summer, but she has a new foal this summer. This filly isn’t the daughter of Mescalero; she is actually Teton’s daughter as the black mare was pregnant before Mescalero got her.

This filly foal has already changed colors a lot. It’s fun watching the foals change colors and finally take on their final appearance; I am planning on doing some posts about the color evolution of foals.