Happy Mustang, Aries, To The Heart of A Mustang. Challenge Painting#437

"Aries"5 by 7 inches Watercolor
by Linda L Martin Artist
SOLD
Prints are available
Fine Art America

I was so excited when Kathryn Barrett visited my Mustang A Day Challenge page on facebook a few weeks ago. It was through her contact that I was able to add this beautiful mustang to the Mustang A Day Challenge. I started following Kathryn’s video blog on the training of an older Mustang in 2011. She named this beautiful roan stallion, from Twin Peaks HMA in California, Aries.

 The most amazing thing about what she was doing with Aries is his Age. He was 12 at the time she began training him. This is something that is near and dear to my heart because so many people try to say that a wild horse over the age of 7 cannot be trained or made useful in captivity.

This in my opinion puts older wild horses who are considered excess in jeopardy.

Sometimes the older horses, such as Kathryn’s Aries, are removed from the range at an older age. Generally a horse like Aries would be gelded and shipped with other geldings to a contract facility in the mid-west where he would live out his life in thousands of acres of grassy pasture with plenty of forage and water. A gentle life where he would only be touched or even see humans once a year to trim feet and make sure the health of the animal was good.

But what happens when these contract facilities are filled to capacity? What happens when, like in 2012, fewer and fewer acres were available to lease by the Bureau of Land Management because the contractors were needing to use the pasture lands for a more rewarding economic ventures in order to sustain their families?

Aries’ and Kathryn’s story is an amazing journey of challenges and over coming. She highlights the possibilities and gives a realistic picture of what working with older mustangs is really all about. It is with great pleasure; and I have to admit it, I’m just thrilled to have the opportunity, to Paint and Share Aries’s portrait. The entire story of  Aries and Kathryn's 2 years is on-line in youtube.

To the Heart of a Mustang can be viewed starting with the pilot episode here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8nRgrgRGI8

See Kathryn's first interaction with Aries here:
Episode 2 is when she brought him to the farm for the first time:

You can also see images of Aries  and ask Kathryn question about her experience on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/heartofamustang
A special thank you to Marcie Lewis for the reference photography of Aries.