The Gathering #15414

The Story

Part of a large horse herd at rest that was being moved across the high desert of Colorado. There were approximately 1,200 horses in the herd, and they were moved 60 miles from their winter grazing land to the main ranch. There, a small army of vets and vet techs look over each horse, checking their overall health. The healthy horses are then organized for leasing and shipment to horseback riding outfits and dude ranches all over the American West. At the end of the summer tourist season, they are brought back to this ranch and released back into the wild for the winter, mostly on their own.

The economics work this way: no one can afford to buy enough hay to feed that many horses over the winter, so the animals do it on their own naturally, maintaining themselves on the sparse grass that grows underneath the sagebrush. It is tall, thinly bladed grass, but enough. The horses can find their own way to the water holes out there, too. They are on their own.

Location: Moffat County, near Craig, Colorado