11/2002

'Mustang Project' Wins Award
Mathew Roybal, Roswell Daily Record

It makes perfect sense that a place overflowing with compassion and stability should win an award for just those traits; including activism, ethics and bravery. The award is the Mliagro 2002 Youth Award, the palace is the Roswell Assurance Home.

Felicia, an 18-year old resident of the Assurance Home, strokes the face of Buttercup, a 3-year-old mustang with a yellow mane and a penchant for grass.

The Assurance Home is a 20-year-old program that offers a positive environment for children in need' whether homeless, abused or neglected. Every year, Animal Protection of New Mexico announces the Milagro Award participants, and the Roswell Assurance Home's "Mustang Project," a three year-old-program dealing with "green broke" wild mustangs, has caught APNM's eye.

The Program acquires wild mustangs from the Bureau of Land Management, which captures the horses in their native habitat in order to thin herds in New Mexico. This thinning is necessary for healthy management of the animals. Some of these mustangs go to a prison in Colorado where they are green broke by inmates, which make the mustangs rideable and tame.

Ron Malone, executive director of the Assurance Home, was clearly excited about the prestigious award as he talked about the program.

"What we do is we go up to the prison in Colorado, we adopt some if these little mustangs and we bring them back to Roswell. Then our kids 'gentle them' so they can become therapeutic horses for handicapped people. It's also a way that our kids can do for others," he said.

Felica and Buttercup go for a stroll behind the main building on the Assurance Home's property.

This gentling process is crucial and it is this process that is the core of the program. Horses must be gentled in order to work in programs where the possibilities of being spooked by a child in a wheelchair or frightened by the sudden movements of a child with crutches, or even mental disabilities are very real.

With direction from program staff, the children work with the mustangs by riding, handling, grooming and giving them love. The kids befriend the horses and it is this aspect of the training that turns the mustangs into trusting, gentle companions of compassion for many children in need.

"We use the horses too, as a therapy for our kids - while they gentle the horses it's very therapeutic for them," Malone said. "In the last two of three years we have gentled about six horses. One of our horses went to a program in Nevada.

"We also have a horse that's been placed in a ranch for handicapped children in Montana, and we are really excited because the horse we are currently working with has been adopted by Texas Tech University to be used in one of their programs. Texas Tech wanted one of our horses and Texas Tech University is so well known in all area, and their therapeutic riding program is so well known, that we feel it is an honor for us and our program," Malone added.

Buttercup is the name of the mustang going to Texas Tech and she is considered to be a well 'gentled' horse."Buttercup is the calmest horse in the world," Malone said with pride.

Buttercup is 3-years-old, and with a projected lifespan of 15 to 20 years, will most likely be providing many wonderful experiences for those in need far into the future.

But behind every good horse there is a good person, and in this case her name is Felicia. Felecia is an 18 year-old resident of the Assurance Home. She's been there for five months. During that time she has worked with Buttercup and has developed a loving relationship. She is understandably very happy about Buttercups success.

"She's really nice and gentle with kids and I think she would be perfect, she will be good," Felicia said.

Some of the hard-working staff and kids of the program will be traveling to the Hilton Hotel in Santa Fe Saturday to receive the Milagro 2002 Youth Award. But, the true gift of the program is the joy Buttercup will most likely bring to the lives of all her future friends, and the joy she has already brought to those who have worked with her.

Felicia summed it up best, "I love Buttercup," she said.

(Read more about the Mustang Project here)