Penny, short for Peninnah, was the ranch’s first experience with rescuing a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Mustang. Her herd was plucked out of the Reno Nevada area and sent to holding stocks at Florence Prison in Arizona under the direction of Randy Helm. I will never forget the experience of going to this BLM auction day at the prison. We went the day prior, to walk the mustangs that were eligible for adoption, meet them, learn their ages, where they came from and whether we thought they could be easily trained and used in our program at the ranch. There is something romantic about the horses of the wild west and I always dreamed of rescuing one. On the morning of the auction, we got to Florence about 6am, to get an early bidder tag. We knew the horse we wanted to adopt. A yearling, strawberry roan filly, tag 0042. That morning when they called her number, I was the winning bidder! I was excited to be a part of a new chapter in this filly’s life. I remember seeing them rudder her through a maze of shoot fencing to get her to load into the stock trailer. After all, she was an untouched, untamed mustang.

Many years have passed and Penny is a thriving member of our herd. She was trained by one of the ranch’s amazing interns, April Johnston under direction of Brandi Lyons. Penny is an absolute joy and loves to seek out attention and be groomed. Penny is ridden by our Vaquero team and is used by children for “on ground” activities. Penny does have a bit of stubborn streak in her and sometimes, I do wonder if she remembers years past, roaming her native desert with the generations of family she was forced to leave behind. We are delighted to have Penny to teach about the BLM mustangs and their Peril to roam the historic lands of their ancestors. She is a true testament of the old west and our not so forgotten past.