First of all let me tell you that Nitro is alive! He is now a bachelor after having lost his mares, but he is alive and hopefully will regain his mares. He is wounded. I do not have photos of him, but Marty has pictures and he has a deep wound on his left hip. He seems to be getting around without problem though, so things are looking good for him.

 

Now, on to the bachelor group Marty and I saw yesterday. We had been on the range for about two hours before we ever saw a horse! That is unheard of! But there we were at Bench Camp looking around. I happened to look back and saw horses in the field we had just come out of. So, of course, back we went to see who they were. Well, at first we were stumped. We recognized Mocha, Ruger and Gaucho, but were kind of unsure about the other three. Of course, being Monument Rock horses (they were just visiting the Round Mountain area) they took off. We were able to get a few pics, but nothing great. We tried to follow them for a bit, but never could find them. We went back to the truck and headed out. We saw three of them again. They had split off into two groups. These bachelors reconfigure constantly! They are hard to keep track of. Anyway, Mocha, Ruger and Gaucho were down in this valley. Didn't go down after them because they were on the move. Thought we could catch them later in one of the upper fields, but we didn't see them again. Sigh... oh well....off we went again. Just over this rise were the other three. One of them (Cayenne) was "talking" things over with Boone, one of the harem stallions. We were able to get photos of the unknown bachelor and Briscoe, but still nothing good on Cayenne. I sure hope these boys stay in the area for a while and we can see them again! It was pretty exciting to see horses we rarely see. I have only seen Cayenne and Briscoe at a long distance. In fact could only see them through the binoculars! Gaucho I have seen up close, but so briefly there was no time to get a photo or even a very good look at him. Mocha I have seen fairly often this summer and Ruger I have been around since birth.

 

I am sure they were in the area looking for mares as there are only a few mares at Monument Rock. We call it the Bachelor Pad!  LOL Who knows, maybe this winter the bachelors will come to the lower canyons in search of love. One can only hope!

Nitro, one of our harem stallions and Enigma and her foal are missing. Enigma and her paint filly with a blue eye, have not been seen in a couple weeks now. Nitro has been missing for about a week now. His mares were seen with another stallion and signs of a fight, with blood and hair, were noticed along a trail too.

 

Nitro is a nine year old harem stallion and was in good shape. I can only hope that he is off licking his wounds for now and will be back soon looking for his mares. 

 

Enigma, however, is a 16 year old mare and has not looked really good for a few years now. She has been pretty thin and sometimes has a hard time keeping up with the band. She did have a foal this year and she was born around the 28th of June. Nursing does takes its toll on the mare. I do not have as much hope of finding these two as I have of Nitro coming back.  Having said that... mustangs are strong, resilient animals. They have survived things that should have killed them and probably would have killed a domestic horse that didn't get treatment. There is always hope for Enigma and her foal, but not really much chance. If the  foal was a bit older, she might have had a chance at survival, but right now is a bit too young to survive on her own. 

 

I guess time will tell the tale about these horses. We can only hope that they are found.

Here is the newest news I have. Beauty has foaled and it looks like it is a filly. She is a bay with a small star, left rear sock and a right rear pastern.  Tall Girl and her foal, Phantom Mist, are now with Onyx. Bandit has picked up a new mare according to a reliable source, but it is not known which mare he picked up and Marty and I were not able to find him yesterday so that remains a mystery. Chablis is grulla now and Legacy is brown, but a golden brown so he may still end up being a buckskin. No sign of Ragtail's Mare so no word on if she has foaled yet. Echo, down in Main Canyon, has not foaled yet either, but looks very big.  Still no clue as to what sex Sunkist's foal is, hope to find that out soon. No news at all about Snoopy and his band, but there should be something on that soon too, I hope       Surprisingly, things are still looking fairly green for this time of year. All the horses look good, nice and fat! That's it for now, more news as it becomes available.