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Justice goes to Washington
Spring Creek Basin wild horse gets ticket to Inauguration Parade
Dolores Star
For more information
To learn more about the wild horses of Spring Creek Basin, visit the BLM’s Web site at Click Here or the call the Dolores Public Lands Office at 882-7296.
He left last week from Spokane, Wash., with nine other mustangs in the U.S. Border Patrol.
After his removal from the range at the August 2007 roundup, the buckskin - then unnamed - went to the East Canyon Correctional Complex at Cañon City, a complex of seven different prisons.
There, he went into the Colorado Wild Horse Inmate Program run by Colorado Correctional Industries.
Bob Ball, manager of the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, who works out of the Dolores Public Lands Office, said the buckskin - then a stallion - first came to his attention in the spring of 2007, when he noticed the horse on private property outside the herd area during a visit.
Ball tried twice to lure the horse back into the herd area - which is bounded by fences and natural barriers. One of those times was with two others, all on horseback, and leading a domestic gelding who had befriended Justice.
The riders got close to the wire gate beside the cattle guard at the entrance to the herd area and led the gelding through, but the buckskin wouldn't follow, so he remained on private land.
"Man, he could run!" Ball said with a laugh. "He left us in the dust more than once."
By August of that year, Justice had buddied up with a few more domestic horses on private property adjacent to the herd area.
On Aug. 20, 2007, the first day of the roundup, the contractor used a helicopter and a "Judas" horse to pen Justice and his domestic buddies.
"What's interesting is that when he was first sent, they thought he was 11, but when we got him here, he was only 4 when we aged him in our chutes," Fran Ackley, Wild Horse and Burro Program leader for BLM in Colorado, said from Cañon City just before he left to take some visitors to view the facility's horses.
His perceived age factored into the decision to remove Justice from the range, and it was also thought that he might try to escape again.
"Generally if we capture something that has left the (herd management area), we won't put it back, because they tend to continue to be a problem," Ball said.
"They aged him at something like 10 - I didn't think he was nearly that old. Otherwise he probably would have been adopted and not gotten to the Border Patrol ... It was just a series of circumstances that led him to Cañon City."
Ball said his best guess for the next roundup in Spring Creek Basin is in 2011 or 2012. Fifty horses live now in Spring Creek Basin.
"It's a real honor and a lot of recognition" to have a horse from Spring Creek Basin be selected for the Inauguration Parade, he said.
"As I understand it, Justice is the first Spring Creek horse that even made it into the saddle- breaking program. Not very many horses make the cut. ... That he was picked for the Border Patrol is an even better recognition."
Mustangs at the prison have to meet three criteria to go into training.
"Once here, (Colorado Correctional Industries) staff members select horses based on conformation, age and temperament - those three things - and conformation includes size," Ackley said.
Justice is about 15 hands tall; a hand equals 4 inches.
"We had maybe a dozen horses in training. The Border Patrol came down. We showed them those horses, and they selected (Justice) out of that group," he said.
Justice was selected for training at the prison in February 2008, and it was late June when the Border Patrol picked him.
On June 22, 2008, Justice went to Colville, Wash., where he's now stationed with the Spokane Sector's Mustang Unit.
"(Justice) did very well in the training program," he said. "He was a quick study."
The inmate who did most of Justice's training - a man named Aaron - is out of prison now, Ackley said.
"(Aaron) really liked him," Ackley said.
"He really put some time into him. He felt the horse had potential, and he tried to get it out of him, like riding with the flag because we thought he might go to the Border Patrol."
Justice got his name while at Cañon City.
"I think he was named that because we thought the Border Patrol might like him, so he was named appropriately," Ackley said.
"I like it."
And then came selection for Justice's unit to be included in the Inaugural Parade.
According to a news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent by Ackley via e-mail: "Chosen from amongst hundreds of applicants around the country, the Mustang Unit will be part of a larger Border Patrol contingent including the Border Patrol Color Guard, Bagpipes and Drums, and marching platoon. ... The Spokane Sector's Mustang Unit was formed in the Spring of 2007 when the Spokane Sector began adopting wild horses through the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program to patrol a stretch of border that boasts some of the most rugged and remote terrain in all of North America.
"With distinctive anatomical features that have enabled their survival for hundreds of years, these true American legends are descendants of animals that were released by or escaped from Spanish explorers, ranchers, miners, the U.S. Cavalry and American Indians."
When the Spokane unit to which Justice is attached learned it had been chosen to attend the parade, Justice was first planned as an alternate horse for the Border Patrol's contingent.
Just recently, Ackley learned that all 10 horses will march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
"So if you look at it, in less than two years, he went from wild on the range to marching in the Inauguration Parade in D.C.; that speaks to his temperament and disposition, that he can handle that," Ackley said.
"That's why the Border Patrol picked him; he's pretty mellow."
After the inauguration, Justice will return with the Border Patrol to Washington state, where he is one of 18 mustangs that patrol the country's northern border and four that patrol the southern border, all trained by Cañon City inmates. There's some justice in that.
The parade begins at 12:30 p.m. MST Tuesday and will be televised.
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
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