Eventing – Steffen Stampede

Can you guess what kind of Mustang Marissa picked for the 2022 MYWY competition??? If something brown and fiery popped into your head then you would be absolutely correctShe chose a completely brown (besides a stripe on her face) 4yr old mare that could gallop circles in a 20 by 20 area with ease. We were in for another wild ride….

Half-way through our 10hr drive home from the BLM, we noticed her entire front leg was swollen from the shoulder down. Was it broken? Extremely Injured? We couldn’t tell…Upon arriving home, we assessed it the best we could but it wasn’t till the next morning when puss started oozing out that we knew it was an abscess

This brown mare was VERY fiery and also …in pain..a bad combination. To get it to heal, we knew we needed to be able to clean it, so Marissa set to work gentling her. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge. She was aggressive and had a nasty habit of charging you. Marissa stayed the course and eventually won this fiery mare’s trust and respect.

Eventually the abscess healed, and Marissa proceeded to start the mare (known as “Freesia”) under-saddle. She was so athletic and trainable, within 3 months jumping 2’6″ with ease and learning to smile! Maybe our next eventing Mustang?!? The thought of keeping her was exciting… but all the Mustangs in this competition were required to be sold at auction. So we tried to not get our hopes up.

After a fantastic weekend at the competition, receiving Reserve Champion under-saddle, the auction began. The price went right up to our limit…then it stopped. We all held our breath as the auctioneer counted down “going once… twice… SOLD”. We were THRILLED!!!!

It is now 3yrs later and Freesia is a family favorite Marissa does everything on this horse! Need a fill-in horse for your Pony Club rating? Freesia was there!

Need a second horse for your Roman riding endeavors? Freesia can do that too!

How about jumping? Freesia LOVES it and can easily clear 1.10 meters.

Maybe a horse your mom can mosey down the trail on? Freesia also is game for that!

We love this fiery brown mare and couldn’t imagine our family without her!

As we are heading into our 6th year of training Mustangs it seemed fitting to take a look back at a few of the super cool Mustangs we have trained

It’s been a wild ride and quite the adventure

If you have ever met us you have probably met or at least heard us talk about Marissa’s mustang Stardust She is pretty much a family member and we all adore her She was the very 1st Mustang we have ever adopted . Marissa, only 12yrs old the time, read a magazine article about a Mustang training competition for youth and begged my parents to let her participate. Our parents were tentative at first…kids training WILD and CRAZY Mustangs…Was this safe?!? After a few weeks of begging, powerpoint presentations and argumentative essays they eventually agreed Marissa applied to the MYWY Mustang Madness Competition and was accepted! We were THRILLED!!!

Typically, in the program, youth competitors receive a yearling Mustang to train for 100 day but unfortunately in 2019 there was a shortage of yearlings…so everyone got 2yr olds. We all started shaking a little. We thought we were ONLY having to train a cute baby NOT a massive 2yr old! What had we gotten ourselves into

But all of our worries were for nothing because the muddy, 15hh 2yr old that was Marissa’s draw for the competition was the sweetest, most gentle mare you had ever met! It was only a few days after bringing her home that Marissa and this Mustang had a special connection

Over the next 100 days this Mustang, who Marissa named Stardust, captivated every one of our hearts and it was no surprise when after the competition that we decided to keep Stardust

Now, 6yrs later, Stardust is still the #1 horse on our farm and continues to captivate the hearts of everyone she meets!

She is an INCREDIBLE trick pony and loves doing liberty and bridle-less demos, is a stellar dressage horse and LOVES to jump. What does the future hold for this awesome Mustang? The hope and goal is to continue improving her Dressage and jumping and see just how far she can go in eventing…who knows you could just see her in a 3* one day!

#blmmustang #wildmustang #horses