Baby Horse Rescue On The Open Range

The all-volunteer team at Wild Horse Fire Brigade works hard every day overseeing our local herd of cultural-heritage horses here on the Open Range in the mountains on the California-Oregon border.

The ancestors of these horses were documented extensively, and photographed by the famous Henley-Hornbrook area ‘buckaroo’, George F. Wright.

George lived in a cabin on the Oregon-California border near Agate Flat (aka. Cold Springs Flat) just west of Jenny Creek on the Oregon side of the fence. 

I (William) am in possession of George’s personal diary and have studied it carefully. It contains many mentions of ‘wild horses’. I am also in possession (on loan from the family) of George’s photo album, with photos of wild horses dating ‘1911’, and labeled as ‘some of the wild Ones on the range’. 

These horses are part of our local heritage and tradition. And if we’re worth our salt as humans, we’ll do whatever it takes for the proper conservation of these true area natives. Let’s not forget the horse fossils in the area as well, dating-back as far as 2-million years.

More recent, modern cultural archaeology, suggest that the ancestors to some of these horses were documented by Sir Francis Drake in 1580, as we read in the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Yvette ‘Running Horse’ Collin, PhD.

https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/7592

Page 39:

“The Spanish conquistadors were not the only European explorers to have noticed and recorded early sightings of horses in the Americas. In 1579, the Queen of England sent Sir Francis Drake to “The New World.” Drake also recorded having seen herds of horses in the Americas during his voyage off the coasts of what are now known as California and Oregon. An account given of Drake’s landing in the geographic areas now known as Northern California and Southern Oregon includes the English explorer’s description of the homes of the Native Peoples, as well as the animals that he encountered. “It related his wonder at seeing so many wild horses, because he had heard that the Spaniards had found no native horses in America, save those of the Arab breed which they had introduced.” 116 In addition to accounts from explorers appointed by European kings and queens, there are accounts of native horses in South America in the area now known as Argentina. One such account even includes an explanation as to why the Spanish may have been motivated to hide the fact that the Indigenous horse of the Americas existed and had a relationship with Native Peoples. According to an article entitled Antiguedad del Caballo En El Plata (The Antiquity of the Horse in the River Plate) by Anibal Cardoso as cited by Austin Whittall on his blog site article 

115 Ibid., 53. 
116 Henry S. Burrage, Original Narratives o f Early American History. Early English and French Voyages (New York: Unknown Binding, 1906), 23.

Pages, 46, 47 and 48 of this research paper contain a few more examples (of many in the paper) of scientific research that strongly suggest that wild horses existed in America during pre-Columbian period (900-400 BC).

This year, over the last 4-months, we’ve saved 4 orphaned babies & gotten them forever loving homes. We are concerned over the reasons for the loss of their mares.

Over the past 10-years, we’ve also helped numerous mares & babies so that they could remain in their bands and with the herd.

We have a community of people who live here in the wilderness northeast of Henley-Hornbrook, who have survived wildfire. Many people in our community realize the value our herd of horses, which is provided via their natural, symbiotic grazing that reduces the wildfire fuels (grass and bush). 

This is an area where cattle and sheep ranchers have failed over time due to excessive predation. The list of failed cattle and sheep ranches on the Oregon-California border northeast of Hornbrook is long, and many names are well known.

The people of our mountain community help us by keeping a sharp look-out and reporting any trouble in the herd in their respective areas on the Open Range.

We want to express our gratitude to: Kathy & Ron, Monica & Rick, and Mary, Angela, Dave, Joel, and the other people in our community… all of whom love and appreciate the horses.

PLEASE Watch and SHARE this video! Thank You!