Training days

Kalispell woman prepares a wild mustang for national competition

One of the biggest challenges for Kalispell horse trainer Stacia Stevens at this weekend's Extreme Mustang Makeover is to bring out the spirited side of her horse, Oh-Bay-Bee.

"I have to get him to run into the arena like he owns the place," Stevens said. "That will be the hardest part."

Except for his tendency to take life a bit too casually at times, Oh-Bay-Bee has been, in many ways, a nearly perfect horse. The gentle 3-year-old bay gelding, rounded up from a herd living wild in the Nevada desert, has been willing to learn and eager to please under Stevens' care.

"He's been amazing, except his motivation to move fast," Stevens said. "His disposition is very mellow and nonaggressive."

Stevens, 39, has been a professional trainer for 18 years. She is the only Montana trainer competing in the second Extreme Mustang Makeover contest, an event created by the Mustang Heritage Foundation in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management.

Two hundred trainers were chosen initially, each given 100 days to turn a wild mustang into a domesticated rideable horse. Out of those, about 135 were able to attend the competition. Fifteen of those horses aren't able to be ridden, Stevens said, but instead will be worked in a round pen.

The trainers came together in Fort Worth, Texas, this weekend, to show off what their horses have learned, with $50,000 split among the top 10 placers in each division. Horses were entered in one of three divisions - Stars, Idols and Legends - ranked by each horse's skill level as assessed by the trainer, with Stars at the top. Stevens decided to place Oh-Bay-Bee in the Idols class, the mid-range skills division involving about 50 horses.

Each trainer also hopes to show off the horse to its best advantage for potential buyers as well as the judges.

An adoption auction is today, with the trainers getting 20 percent of the highest bid. Those who adopt the mustangs are on a year's probation to prove they are giving the animal a good home, and only those who go through an application process are allowed to bid.

The challenge began in June, when the trainers showed up in Reno, Nev., to pick up their horses. The horses were randomly cut from the herd and sent into each trainer's trailer. Through pure luck, Stevens said she ended up with one of the five horses she most wanted.

Though her husband, Larry Don, was with her when she brought the horse home from Nevada, Stevens drove the three-day, 1,800-mile trip, to Fort Worth alone. She planned on stopping every night at a horse hotel, and she also hoped to ride Oh-Bay-Bee each night in different environments to prepare him for the chaos of the Mustang Makeover itself.

He did well when she took him to the Northwest Montana Fair and entered him in Western pleasure and trail classes to test his demeanor. He didn't win anything, but she still was pleased with the outcome.

"My main thing was how well he handled the pressure of all those horses and the new environment," she said. "My goal was not to have a bad experience."

She had her sights set higher for the Mustang Makeover. For Stevens, the competition is about the horse believing in its owner.

"Everything we are doing as we give the horse obstacles is a test to see if we were able to teach the horse to trust us or not," she said.

Stevens had cleared her roster of clients to concentrate solely on Oh-Bay-Bee when she first brought him home this summer, but it wasn't long before she decided she would have time to fit other horses into her days.

As a certified trainer mentored by renowned horsemen Jon and Josh Lyons, Stevens bases her business, Gentle Persuasion Horse Training, on one basic philosophy - it's all about trust.

"We don't make them trust us, they have to do it on their own," she said. "If they don't trust you and you force them into things, eventually they will explode."

Though Oh-Bay-Bee lived as a wild animal in his first few years of life on the range, Stevens said he was surprisingly cooperative. Demonstrating the trainability of the mustangs is one of the reasons for the creation of the Mustang Makeover.

"Mustangs are phenomenal at accepting this process," she said. "They're herd animals, and used to having a leader. We become the head of the herd."

And Oh-Bay-Bee has no baggage from bad handling or poor training.

"He didn't have any bad habits," she said. "He was a clean slate with no preconceived notions. He doesn't know who or what you are."

The horse accepted his situation very fast, Stevens said. In a matter of hours, she was able to lead him, load him, trim his feet and saddle him. Within two weeks, she was able to ride him.

Oh-Bay-Bee learned how to navigate the classic trail-class obstacles - crossing logs, opening gates, carrying tarps, passing sideways, crossing bridges - in very little time, Stevens said.

"It was 100 times easier than I expected," Stevens said. "The horse was so willing to try and understand what I was asking.

"I was planning on putting four hours a day into this horse, and I didn't have to. That was the blessing of the mustang that I obtained. I didn't have to work so hard to get beautiful results."

Clients who need equine problems solved make up the bulk of Stevens' business, so it was a pleasure, she said, to work with a horse that hadn't developed any bad behaviors.

"This horse had to have advanced training, so it was so nice to have the opportunity to do some finish work on a horse, verses the problem solving," she said.

The Mustang Makeover competition is very pure in that way, she said. It's a unique opportunity to prove her skills as a trainer.

"No one has done anything to the horse except you," she said. "It explains whether or not you have the ability to connect with your horse."

And Stevens said she has definitely connected with Oh-Bay-Bee.

"Any horse I put this much time into, I really start to like," she said. "The more time you spend with them, the more you respect them."

For more information on Stevens and Gentle Persuasion Horse Training, visit www.montanahorsetraining.com

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com