Two Page women win awards at Wild Mustang Challenge

Jenna Dollar and Jessica Shorthair demonstrate the abilities of their rescued mustangs.

Posted

The Arizona Extreme Mustang Makeover’s Tip Challenge held in Gilbert, Arizona last month selected two of Page’s finest equestriennes to participate in the Mustang Heritage Foundation’s annual event.  Jessica Shorthair and Jenna Dollar both competed in the 100-day challenge after their applications for a wild mustang adoption were accepted.


The Tip Challenge event of the Extreme Mustang Makeover event is one of two challenges that are available for a showmanship of skills without riding. The other event is the Trail Challenge and the trainer is required to ride the mustang. Though the Challenges are technically a competition, the event is centered around the rehabilitation and training of a wild mustang in a 100 day time frame. The seemingly impossible task of bonding with a wild mustang in a short amount of time is made to look easy by the talents of the young trainers also known as “horse whisperers”.


Both young women will admit the task was anything but easy considering the history of the mustangs. The wild mustangs Shorthair and Dollar adopted were captured in Nevada, which has an overpopulation of wild mustangs, by the Bureau of Land Management. The mustangs were then transferred to facility after facility until they were relocated to the Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP) in the Florence State Prison’s Wild Horse holding facility. The Florence Wild Horse and Training Facility then begins the process to “gentle” the horses to help the new owners to break them.


However, without many people trying to adopt wild mustangs so many stayed with WHIP for years. Many people began to form the opinion that the techniques meant to get the horses to trust humans were considered archaic and stressful to the horses. The combined efforts of the two entities to involve the Mustang Heritage Foundation help adopt the wild mustangs prompted the Extreme Mustang Challenges.

Jenna and Ghost
Jenna Dollar adopted Ghost after waiting five years to be able to afford to do the Challenge. Ghost had waited almost as long in Florence for Dollar to pick her up.  
“I have been wanting to do this Mustang Makeover and finally I could pay for the horse,” said Dollar. “This year they had an opening. On January 13 I picked her up and it was my job to break her.


“I would go every day for two to four hours. I couldn’t decide if I was going to halter or not halter but I wanted to get the full experience. I would sit next to her food and get closer and closer each day. It took a while to get the halter on her. We had our ups and downs; she had a problem with kicking; she bit once and she ran from us six times. Then rope burns, lots of rope burns.”


Most new owners of adopted mustangs claim the process of breaking the wild mustang is made more difficult because of the stressful conditions in Florence.


“She was four when she was caught and I think it scared her when the inmates would run at her because she had never been handled that way before.”


But Dollar did not give up and believed Ghost’s needed more kindness.


“I figured out she liked her head petted so I used that to my advantage. When she did well I pet her head and gave her a treat. At the show I took off the lead rope and showed them what she could do.”


Ghost got her name from the theme of their performance which came from Ghostbusters. She encourages others to look into the Challenges for the sake of the mustangs.
“It’s a good program if you have the dedication for it. It’s not for everybody but they definitely need more people to do this.” said Dollar.  


 Dollar’s family and friends have seen a new side of her since the 100 day challenge began. “She has moved mountains and waters with what she has done,” adds Lance Carter.
Dollar took third place in the freestyle with her Ghostbusters theme and seventh overall in the Challenge.

Jessica and Arrow
Jessica Shorthair also took part in the event in Gilbert with her new mustang, Arrow. Shorthair took a much slower approach to training her horse.


“I did not use any ropes whatsoever,” she said. “Any time she had food in front of her I was sitting next to it, so she had to accept me. Then slowly I work with my tools. I rubbed her with the ropes and once I could rub her all over, I tried rubbing her with the halter so then I could start putting it on her. There was absolutely no stress involved. I did this until she accepted the ropes. Once I established that bond then everything I put in front of her she had a go-get-it attitude and she tried her little heart out for me.”


Arrow had also been in the Florence holding facility for five years, which Shorthair acknowledges made the challenge more difficult when she was trying to gain Arrow’s trust.
“People think ‘I’m going to get a wild horse! Oh, a fresh canvas! No baggage, nothing!’. Not true. I have a horse that stood in a pen for five years being chased with giant flags, shuffled into trailer and moved from facility to facility and they got put into chutes… so the only thing they relate to humans is that. So, you really got to prove to them that you are not going to hurt them.”


But Shorthair proved herself to Arrow and soon they were in Gilbert, Ariz., where they did a Navajo themed “traveling circle game.”


“She circled around me to show the control and relaxation that she had, she stood on the pedestal and did some liberty work.”


Shorthair recalls the Liberty portion was Arrow’s best event.


“I took off the lead rope and worked with her with no ropes attached, that’s what the Liberty portion was. I demonstrated that I could do a little bit of everything that was one thing that the judges liked on my report was the liberty.”


Shorthair took second place in the overall Tip Challenge, all while pregnant.

Next on the Agenda
Shorthair is now partnering with her best friend Jessie Yniguez, also a former Extreme Mustang Makeover first place winner (2017) and her mother K.C. Johnson in a non-profit venture called Border Towns Horse Company.


The goal is to start holding challenges that will specifically aim to boarder and train wild horses from the Grand Circle area.


They have begun holding training clinics and can schedule a session at 435-899-0654 or by visiting their website or Facebook page.


Dollar will be doing another show on December 8-9, 2018 called the Bible Spring Complex Mustang Challenge. She will be picking up a new mustang for the challenge at the end of June.


“If I get ghost riding, I'll show ghost in riding and my new mustang in hand just like last time with ghost, …same thing as last show but you can choose to ride or be on the ground.” Dollar excitedly announces.