Cavin Graham, a professional horse trainer from Rocky Face, Ga., is a product of good, old-fashioned American ingenuity.
Strapped with the responsibility of managing tens of thousands of wild, North American mustangs, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has partnered with the nonprofit Mustang Heritage Foundation to come up with a novel solution, and Graham is a participant.
The Mustang Heritage Foundation sponsors regional competitions called Extreme Mustang Makeovers. Each horse trainer has about three months to adopt and train a wild mustang from a federal holding area. After that, the trainers and horses compete for titles and prizes at regional competitions.
Ingenious.
"They've never been handled at all by man," Graham says of the mustangs. "They are pretty reactive. They see us as predators."
Mark KennedyThe Mustang Heritage Foundation website explains the extreme makeovers this way: "After being selected, a trainer picks up an American Mustang that has been virtually untouched by humans and has approximately 100 days to gentle, halter break and saddle train, build trust and develop a relationship with the horse to compete and win."
Immediately after the Extreme Mustang Makeover competitions, the newly trained mustangs are auctioned off to horse owners, creating a win-win for the equine community and the government, which is restrained by law from slaughtering the protected animals.
An estimated 3,866 mustangs have been auctioned at Mustang Heritage Foundation events. Meanwhile, about 50,000 of the animals remain in government holding areas, and thousands more are still in the wild in the Western United States.
But back to Graham.
When the carpet mill where he was a supervisor shut down a few years ago, Graham looked around for a new career.
"I figured out there was a need for somebody who could train horses in the area," he said. "It was something I could be passionate about."
Graham said he found satisfaction in taking an unridable horse and returning it to its owner tamed and saddle ready. It was just a short hop from there to training mustangs for competition.
A few years ago, Graham began adopting and training mustangs to compete in Extreme Mustang Makeover events. He says he had middling success until his most recent project horse, a Mustang he named Terrapin for its turtle-like disposition.
"He wasn't slow, but he never got in a hurry," Graham explains.
But there was something - some X factor - in Terrapin that portended greatness. "After about the first three or four days I told a friend that he had a chance to be a special horse," Graham says.
After his three-month training, Graham entered Terrapin in the 2018 Mustang Magic event in Fort Worth, Texas, last month, one of the premier events of its kind in the country.
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After the preliminary events, Terrapin finished fourth in a 22-horse field, meaning he had a chance to crack the top three in the freestyle competition - think mixed-pairs ice skating at the Olympics, only with riders and horses. There are costumes and music and the horse equivalent of choreography, Graham says.
In the finals, Terrapin turned in a near-flawless performance.
"As an obstacle, he pushed a cart with his chest the whole length [of the show area]," Graham said. "It got a good reaction from the crowd and it gave the Terrapin a minute to settle in. Then, we did a Ranch-riding pattern where we did a couple of circles in each direction, with different sizes and speeds."
When the scores were posted, Terrapin had leap-frogged the other horse-rider teams into first place, winning the over-all competition.
"I was real surprised to hear our name called last," Graham said.
For the victory, Graham won $3,500 and Terrapin sold at auction for $2,300, just the virtuous cycle that the Mustang Heritage Foundation had hoped for.
"Cavin is a great trainer, and brought an incredible horse to the Mustang Magic this year," says Lizzy Landry, event and program director of the Mustang Heritage Foundation. "We are very excited to have him as an ambassador for the mustangs, and our foundation."
To suggest a human interest story contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.