Warrior's Band

Warrior's band! Warrior is this nice white stallion. To the right is Diva, his daughter.

Warrior has spectacular youngsters, including the two pinto colts.

The mare on the left is Shiva, she has been Warrior's lead mare since the round up. She is a minimalist pinto and an excellent brood mare. She has had a new foal this year, but she does not have one every year.

Shiva

Warrior

Diva, with the unusual stripe, is Shiva's daughter. I believe she was born in 2010. She has her own foal now. Most likely sire is Mr Bojangles, Warrior's faithful satellite stallion.

I love this old guy. He takes good care of his small family. I have noticed he is much more tolerant towards people. To think their are people thinking about giving our stallions chemical vestectomies sickens me. They would have to shoot them from a helicopter with tranqualizer guns then due some weird procedure. It would be a "pilot program". Myself and other friends of these mustangs are going to make sure this doesn't happen! I believe SWAT has taken a stand against this.

The grey/white pinto is stunning! A real stand out! My friend called him by another color ... I remember when he was born, I saw him as a newborn. He went lame his first year for awhile, but recovered completely.In my opinion, he will be totally grey like his sire.
Shakti

There are a couple of people who have focused on finding new foals this year. They are the ones who put names on them, you can go to Sand Wash Basin Wild Horse face book page and see all in the 2014 foals album. Here the photographers have come together and created a beautiful album. Heather Robson of New Zealand compiles them. It really is a group effort. The naming usually goes well, but can cause tremendous strife among advocates. We all love this herd equally and have different ideas on what should or should not happen to them. We have 2 documentations going on the 2014 foals, the other is by Aleta on the SWAT face book page. Hopefully this winter we can work on the yearling-5 yr old albums. This is a lot of work, but many of us feel like it will help the wild horses to have them recorded.

Warrior's amazing colts
Shakti and Arroyo

This is Mr. Bojangles, Warriors satellite stallion. He is really good at what he does, he helps Warrior keep his family together and safe.

Lame Foal in Warrior's Band (Shakti)

Warrior's Band

It was nice to bump into Warrior and his small band. I had not seen them for quite awhile. Warrior is the grey here shown with his one mare, Shiva, her 2 yr old son, Shane and her 2011 filly, Diva.

That's Bojangles. their satellite stallion.

I did not meet this stallion until this spring. Last summer Shiva and Shane were with Cortez and Bojangles was a bachelor stallion.

Diva

The wild horses get their nerve up and do a trot by. I love it when they do this.

They get a good look (and smell) of me.

OK that was enough! Let's go!

The pretty mare, Shiva. She has real classic Sand Wash good looks.

I like Diva's funny little stripe. I think she will live up to her name!

Bojangles gets right in there and mingles with this band.

Mysteries

Here is an elusive little family. This is the first time I have seen this foal that is with the dun, Storm, and his mare, Blue Sky. Sky came from Lightnings band. She ran off with Storm last June. He keeps her well hidden. We need a name on the yearling. I don't know if it is a filly or colt.

Destiny is now with this black stallion who I believe to be Harlan. Destiny is Viggo's and Kira's yearling filly who ended up seperated from her family coming out of winter.

I am pretty confused about this band...I wonder if one is Tuscarora's 2 yr old filly, Dolly? Tuscarora was near by. I think the yearling is the one we called Slate? We need to do some research to ID this little band. I think the black stallion is Slick, who I need to get in an album.

This is a band I am slowly learning about. They have two crazy looking pinto mares, who look like they could be sisters. We named them Splash  and Luna. Splash has the 2 yr old sorrel colt, Roosevelt. He is easy to tell apart as he has a pinto marking on the side of his neck. The band stallion is one of the duns, I always forget which one. Both duns need ID's along with a yearling chestnut filly we have not recorded. I do not know who her mom is. I will add the duns along with the filly to our albums. I am going to do a whole post about this encounter. Please be patient!

Wow, this band was spooky with their new foal. I think the sorrel stallion is Solaris, who had a large band last year. The grey mare is Frosty, the roan yearling is her colt, Flare. The other horses are the bays Sedona and Mesa. Hope to see more of this band.

It was good to see Silverado, the white/grey, with his band. Nothing has changed here except for the mare's (Celeste's) new foal. I did not get a gender. The yearling filly is Bird. The black is a stallion we call Skerik. I don't know how he fits in. Satellite stallion? Aragon was dogging this band.

This is the white stallions, Warrior, band, minus Warrior. The mare and her 2 yr old colt (Shiva and Shane) are pintos. The new filly we call Diva. Bojangles is a satellite stallion for these guys. Cortez had this mare and her colt last year.

Cortez, the dun with the hour glass blaze, with his two mares, The white mare is Asha, she is nose to nose with her son, Aspen. The bay mare (Athena) was with Solaris last year. She does not seem to have foals.

I was lucky to find Vegas with PJ and Olga (from Picasso's band). This mare had joined them with her newborn.  I have better photos of this mare and will do some more research. I just want to make sure we don't count horses twice.  

I finally saw Tuscarora (another grey/white stallion) and his two mares, the yearling palo, Goldie, and the two new foals. This one belongs to Gaia, we named her Arctic. Talia's is younger and is also a filly . So nothing has changed too much here (phew) except his 2 yr old filly, Dolly is missing. These mustangs were not into being photographed on this day ....Talia (the grey mare) was very shy with the new filly.

More Mystery White

I spot the pinto mare, her son and new filly. This time I try to get a bit closer. I know this band is shy. The only mare, Shiva, is a beautiful sorrel splashed with pinto markings. Last fall she had been with Cortez. Now she is with a white stallion I have not ID'd.
Here is the white stallion. The HSUS girl had warned me the white stallions out here are the hardest to identify....she's right! Just when I thought I had seen them all a new one comes along and in the mean time some just seem to vanish. It would take a dedicated group of people to document this whole herd.
This is the two year old colt we call Shane. We have a lot of 2 year olds on the range. There were some 60 born in 2009. No telling how many are still around, but more then 3 year olds. Every single weanling rounded up in Oct 2008 was removed....those would have been the 3 year olds...
Both mom and filly have little turned up noses. They are very cute. I hope I see them again soon. You just never know who you are going to run in out here!
Off they go. In the foreground is the young stud, Bojangles. He seems to be a cooperating satellite stallion. Last year he ran with some of the ridge bachelors.
Mr. Bojangles, learning the ways of his home range, Sand Wash Basin, Colorado. Long may he run!