Since it first happened and I mentioned it to visitors to the Center, people who have emailed me, and others, I have received a number of inquiries as to how Prince is doing. Prince, as of this Wednesday, is not bad; but his life is different now than it had been when this story started in June.
Many probably remember that the grulla roan stallion Blue Moon (Flint) got a grulla mare named Feldspar shortly after her foal died. Feldspar had been with Morning Star, and Morning Star had taken her last year from Prince. Blue Moon and Feldspar were still together in mid-June of this year.
Shortly after this, though, he had lost Feldspar again. She was back with Prince, which wasn’t a total surprise given the time she had spent with him last year.
As the summer progressed, Prince started getting pressure from bachelors. On September 17, when I was up there, I found Prince with Custer and Blue Moon dogging him.
Looking at Prince closer, I found that the right side of his bottom lip had been torn.
A couple of days after this, I learned from some people that had been on the mountain that Blue Moon once again had Feldspar back. I went up a couple days after this, and I was surprised to not see them together. Instead of having Feldspar, he had Duke’s two year old daughter and her foal.
Around this same time, there was other frequent interchange involving a few horses going on in other parts of the range. Just when I had an updated list sent out with people, they were reporting it wrong. This was also the case with Blue Moon. They said that he had a grulla with blaze, which of course meant Feldspar. I went up shortly after this to see them together.
This, of course, raised two main questions for me. How was Prince and what happened to the young mare and her foal that had been with Blue Moon? I did find Prince, but I never found Duke or the young mare and foal that day.
Custer and Littlefoot were also nearby dogging Prince.
I really was wanting to see Duke, but I just couldn’t find him. Just days right after this trip, a large snowstorm arrived in the area. It was just this Wednesday when I went back onto the mountain. The horses are all moved down off the mountain, having come down their “home ridges.” I went into the Burnt Timber area. The first horse I saw was a dark colored stallion running a distance out.
Following him along, he led me right to Prince. Custer was also there. This time, though, Custer was acting more like a satellite bachelor than a dogging bachelor. In fact, for the first few minutes I was there, I thought Custer had Winnemucca (Prince’s grulla mare) and Prince had the rest of the family. I stayed there for a while, and it really did seem more like this was one harem with a main stallion and satellite bachelor.
Prince hadn’t changed a whole lot since I last saw him. He doesn’t have as much weight on as many of the other horses do, but this is to be expected with such an injury. The injury itself seems to be healing.
It was nice to see Prince then. I actually ended up seeing most of the Sykes and Burnt Timber horses that day as well, though I still didn’t see Duke.
Prince was one of the first Burnt Timber horses that I was able to remember when I first started watching the horses. At that time, he only had Ireland. More recently, he has also become another favorite of mine as he is the only offspring of his mother (Queen) that has ever reproduced; he is carrying the line forward with his offspring. He’s also pretty admirable as he is an older stallion (15 years old), and he’s still pretty tough to carry on the way he is.
PryorWild 