Sunday's wild horses

We headed out at Sunday morning at 5:30 a.m. looking for wild horses. Since we saw horses along the road to Virginia City last night, that's where we went. Remember, we're winging it until the BLM office opens tomorrow morning. Some kind souls have given us advice, but it's definitely trial and error.

Right by the 'Horse Crossing' sign on the highway to Virginia City we saw a dead horse. We had missed it last night but it looks like it had been there a couple of days.

We noticed people speeding by last night as we were photographing by the side of the road. Apparently, drivers don't pay much attention to the signs. Sad...


No horses all the way to Virginia City. When we came back down we still didn't see the horses from last night. We decided to head back into the hills we were on last night. We hadn't gone five minutes and saw seven horses up on a ridge. One stallion, five mares and a young foal.

The stallion was lame in the hind leg. Boy, less than 24 hours out and two casualties. His leg doesn't appear broken, likely just a bad sprain, but he was definitely hobbling.

Our experience with wild horses has been a mixed bag. Some are so shy you can't get out of the truck. These horses are obviously desensitized to humans as they paid us almost no mind at all. Mom was the most elusive but her foal was quite young. After a few minutes, even she didn't care that we were there.

We were able to walk up quite close. The morning sun was just right and we shot until we were satisfied. Ahhhhhh.......

We did observe some interesting behaviors. A young palomino mare was flirting quite openly with the stallion. Being a stallion, he was quite interested as well. But when he got a bit too personal she reacted appropriately for a young female and rebuffed him. We watched this several times, even seeing her back up to him like she was ready to breed. We were happy to see this did not occur, as she is much too young to breed.

We were fascinated with the young foal. It will be the only one in this small family group, as none of the other mares were pregnant. All of the mares watched over this little one.

The light finally became harsh and we headed back very satisfied with what we had gotten.

We went back in the afternoon and found the same horses across the road on the opposite ridge. The stallion had lost most of his limp. Mom was more tolerant of us now. The babe was quite frisky and all the mares found a sand patch to roll in.

Several people in ATVs went by the horses on our way up. They didn't even seem to notice the horses until they came back down and saw us photographing. The horses didn't seem to mind the extra company.

The young palomino mare continued to flirt with the stallion. Only this time, one of the older mares seemed to get jealous. She tore over where the two of them were carrying on, bit the stallion and glared at the palomino.

The horses eventually drifted up the hill. We were very satisfied with the day and headed back to the campground. We thought we would check just one more time along the highway where we had seen the horses the night before. Three family groups! But that is for next time....