Legacy Mustang Preservation
Continued from last week...
Since the event in 2011, Jamie, Craig, and Christina have founded Legacy Mustang Preservation, in Louisa, VA. The nonprofit organization is committed to finding homes for the forgotten. They take the unadopted mustangs from auctions, unsuccessful adopters, or rescue, as well as unadopted mustangs from BLM adoptions, gentle them, and find them suitable adoptive homes. Since 2011, the organization has placed over sixty mustangs in forever homes. Each of these horses were bound for facilities like the one Willie was in or worse. The three trainers also serve as often as possible as clinicians and judges for ACTHA events, promoting the mustang and sharing what the mustang has taught them with ACTHA members and riders.
This is not the story of some famous movie or trick horse. This is not a story of some rich person who threw marketing money at making herself famous. This is a woman with a dream and the horse that ignited a passion. As a result, the Legacy crew have committed to saving horses like Willie for a lifetime. He is the proof that the mustang is not only viable in the East, but can compete with the best. He is not the most beautiful, nor is he the biggest or the strongest. He does, however, have the heart of a horse that understands what his owner wants and chooses to give her everything he has. If the stars had lined up any other way, Willie would still be standing in a pen in Wyoming with no family, no purpose, and no future.
Sixty of his fellow mustangs would probably be there, too, were it not for the love he experienced with Jamie Dodson.
