Our Stang Tales Began

On a sunny Saturday in June 2002, I took my daughter and her friends to a mustang adoption in Woodland Hills, CA. It was the closest I had heard of mustangs being to West Los Angeles. We just went to look of course, something I had wanted to do for years, but had never accomplished. When we arrived we saw some yearlings in the first pens. Some were colored, a couple of blacks, a gray. We stopped to watch some of the donkeys for a bit (The wild ones are adorable!) I moved on to the pens on the backside. Here were the 2 year olds and up, lots of bays and chestnuts. I moved down the row, trying to match the neck tags with the numbers marked as adopted. I was curious to see who had been adopted and wondered if i could guess why one was chosen or why another might still be available. At one of the last pens as I crouched down to read a tag, and a bay in the back dropped her head and looked right at me. I stayed low resting my hands on the rails, and she slowly inched toward me, curious about who I was. She came close enough to sniff the two offered fingers, pulling back and releasing a puff of air when I wiggled them. She didn't move away, she reached out to take another sniff. Within minutes she let me tickle her chin with one finger, then her cheek with two. When my knees protested, I stood bent over and she stayed near me. Soon she moved along the fence following my friendly fingers looking for more cheek/chin scratches. We didn't need another horse! We were boarding the one horse we had already. Who would let us board a mustang anyway?? Or have an empty 20X20, 6-foot tall corral in Southern CA? One a single mom could afford? It was impossible so after a short last visit, we left her there and headed home. All night I tossed and turned, I was haunted by hat curious, bold, intelligent filly. What a wonderful brave confident horse she could grow up to be! The next day I printed out boarding stables in the L.A area. I gave the list to my daughter and told her if you find a place we can keep her; we'll go back and get her when I get back. She started calling and found a place that had a 24x24 stall available, and had boarded mustangs before. When I finished class, I rushed home to picked up my daughter and grab a halter. We arrived at the adoption 5 minutes before it was due to close. My daughter ran to see if she was still there as I was searching the board to see if her number was on the adopted list. It wasn't!! The BLM folks were ready to start packing up, and had to ask the hauler if they could deliver just one more before they could adopt her to me. After a LONG weekend of delivering horses in LA traffic he said he would. So I filled out an application, paid $125 to adopt her, and had her hauled to a stable I had never even seen! We named her Symphony Solstice in honor of the honor of the day we met, and the change it brought about in her life. Little did I know how big a change it would bring in my life. 4 years ago we moved 100 miles, to a house where she could live with me. Even though it meant moving away from my friends, family, and a job transfer it was worth it. We have since adopted a second and third mustang who are both very special to us. We have been blessed with some exceptional friends and taken part in some incredible events because of our mustangs. Symphony? She is everything I imagined she would be and more. She watches over our other horses, ignoring her own fears if she thinks they are in danger. She is always the first in line to greet me. She is mine because she chose to be, and I am hers. There is no mistaking that she claims me every time I enter her yard, her herd. She is my shoulder to lean on at the end of a rough day; She lends me strength delivered in the softest puffs of breath. She is my place of instant peace.