News

Making peace with mustangs

It's called 'Extreme Mustang Makeover,' but it's the trainers who evolve

By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi' Bureau

WHEATFIELDS, Ariz., June 30, 2011

The Gambler never takes his eyes off his competitor. This game is new to him, but he can see it's one less of chance than of skill.

He outweighs his competitor nearly tenfold, and has some formidable built-in weapons. But the two-legged one has an uncanny intelligence. And he has tools.

Today, for instance, Carlos Chee is carrying a rope. Just what does he intend to do with that?

The Gambler flicks his ears in contemplation. His Achilles' heel is his curiosity, and it is getting the better of him. Perhaps he'll play along for this hand, and save his best cards for later.

An expert in horse conformation would have little use for The Gambler, except perhaps as a bad example. He would point sniffily to the lack of depth through the heart, the chest so narrow the front legs almost touch, the forward-tilting knees, the graceless neck.

But look into The Gambler's eyes, and you will see the irresistible raw cunning of a Brazilian street urchin. It is that, that keeps Carlos Chee coming back to the Extreme Mustang Makeover.

Chee, 23, and his dad, Charles Chee of Upper Greasewood, Ariz., who describes his age as "close to 50," have been competing in the Extreme Mustang Makeover since 2008.

A brainchild of the Mustang Heritage Foundation, the event showcases the smarts and trainability of these problematic symbols of the Wild West - and gets hundreds adopted each year.

Each competitor gets a raw mustang and three months to make it into a saddle horse. Then they show their stuff in the arena and on the trail before a panel of judges, and the best trainer wins.

"It's really amazing to see what they do with these horses in three months," said the foundation's marketing director, Jennifer Hancock. "Last year we had somebody ride one over a bridge, and the horse was blindfolded."

Carlos likes to teach his charges how to back into a trailer - and if you've ever tried to get a green horse into a trailer even front wise, you know how hard it is.

There are several competitions throughout the U.S. during the year, and the top trainers from those compete in an annual event called "Mustang Magic."

So far, the Chees and Boyd Brody of Pinedale, N.M., are the only Din‚ to compete in the Makeovers. But that will all change this year. For the very first time, the Extreme Mustang Makeover is coming to Indian Country - the Din‚ College rodeo arena, to be exact.

Charles said he pitched Navajoland to the foundation for three years before they finally bit. He thought he had lost the bid when the Texas-based foundation execs visited Din‚ Bik‚yah in the spring and it was raining and snowing.

"I think they thought it was Arizona, so it would be like Phoenix," he said.

On the contrary, they were charmed.

"The mustangs really shine out on the trail," Hancock said. "The rocks, streams and logs around Tsaile will be the perfect showcase for their abilities."

Susan Palmer, a competitor from Corrales, N.M., offers another good reason to hold the competition here.

"Indians and wild horses just go together," said the professional horse trainer, who traces Klamath blood on her birth mother's side.

The event will be Aug. 12-14, with all the competing mustangs available for adoption on the final day. (They'll be auctioned to the highest bidder who can prove he'll provide a good home - but the prospective adopters will be on probation for a year.)

Thirteen Navajos and 13 non-Navajos have signed up to compete in the training event and picked up their horses May 20 and 21. All portions of the competition are free to spectators except for the finals, for which $10 tickets are available online at www.extrememustangmakeover.com.

Meanwhile, Carlos is squaring off with The Gambler, who these days is folding more than holding, and Charles has his hands full with fidgety Butterfly. Father and son are both enjoying themselves immensely - and the horses are too, although it's hard to get them to admit it.

"These horses are just so amazing," said Carlos. "It's hard to win their trust, but once you do, they'll give you 100 percent."

Both men also participate in TIP, the foundation's trainer incentive program. They halter-train raw mustangs for the foundation to make them more adoptable, then get a cut when they're auctioned off.

And as they've trained mustangs, the mustangs have trained them.

"Every one of them is different," Carlos said. "They have different personalities, different attachments ... I like the challenge of getting a different horse all the time."

Charles started out raising paints and Appaloosas, but now his herd is almost entirely mustangs, except for the little Shetland pony for his youngest daughter.

It's the mustangs' wily intelligence that converted him. He says they're almost intuitive.

One day, Charles said, he was rounding up cattle on a mustang mare when she spooked and threw him. A day's labor lost, thought Charles as he picked himself up and pulled out the burrs. But when he dusted himself off, he saw the little mare was rounding up the cows all by herself.

"By the time I walked back to the corral," he recalled, "she had them all in."

He'd love to keep Butterfly, in spite of his skittish ways.

"He's nice and small," Charles said. "I'm getting older. My knees aren't so good."

There are two ways for a trainer to adopt the horse he spent three months with: he can write an essay about why he wants it, and if he convinces the foundation he ought to have it, the foundation will help him pay the adoption fee.

Or he can take his chances and bid on it at auction - and hope there's not some high-rolling Californian in the audience like the one who bid $50,000 for a horse a few years back (mostly to help out the foundation, which uses the proceeds to rescue more mustangs).

Most trainers do get pretty attached, even if they opt not to try to keep their project.

"Believe me," Charles said, "You'll see tears shed on adoption day."

Charles hopes the event goes well so the Navajo Nation can become part of the circuit and more Navajo trainers will get recognized. But either way, he'd like to spearhead a local event that would involve feral horses rounded up by the Navajo Rangers. His family is sponsoring a ranch horse competition Aug. 28 where he hopes to see some tamed mustangs.

As his chapter's grazing official, Charles has seen the feral horse problem first-hand - he estimates there are a couple hundred in Tsaile-Wheatfields alone - and he wants a humane solution.

"The Navajo Nation says they own all the unbranded horses," he said. "Well, if you own something, take care of it."

As for the Extreme Mustang Makeover, the competition is friendly, even to the point of sharing tips on Facebook. But Charles admits he'd like a Navajo to win it and Palmer says she'd love to see one of the few women trainers ride home with part of the $7,500 purse.

As for Carlos, he says he's already won.

"I've won the trust of a wild animal," he said. "That's something not everyone can say."

Back to top ^