EXTREME MUSTANG MAKEOVER

Wild horse brings out woman's dreams

Kathy Dayton had nothing left. Her confidence was gone, her business was buried under a pile of bills, and the banks were going to snatch her house.

She was a scared, shaken human being. All she had left were dreams, and even those were fading.

Then one day, Dayton, 45, of rural Pierce, checked her mail, and her biggest dream came back in a flash, like the blur of a mustang she was going to train. It was a letter from the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition. She was selected as one of 300 across the country to train a wild mustang and make him available for adoption.

The rules are simple. You get the horse and 100 days to work with him, and then you compete during the weekend of Sept. 18-21 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dayton hardly felt strong enough to train an unpredictable, wild horse, but again, that dream was all she had.

Up until a year ago, she trained horses at her Lazy K Corral for a living. Her grandfather lived four miles down the road from her sprawling ranch with the view of Longs Peak and the endless sunsets and long, dirt road to seemingly nowhere. She was on ponies since she could walk.
She was married for 18 years but halfway through that, in Parker, she got a horse, and once she did that, she knew horses were what she was supposed to do.

That is, that's what she thought, until she took a bad fall off a horse and shattered her right arm. She recovered from that. Then her boyfriend and business partner left. Then she got tossed from a colt in April and shattered her wrist. She has so much titanium in her arms now that some call her the Bionic Woman. She cashed in her 401K and got an intern to keep it going. Then a $10,000 mare died. And the economy went sour and no one, it seemed, could afford to get their horses trained any longer, and she lost everything, her truck, her beloved ranch and her belief in herself.

Everything was telling her to quit horses. She went back to work in the real world as an event planner.

Then she got the acceptance letter for an application she had forgotten she sent last spring, and she met Reno.

Reno, the coal-black wild mustang from Reno, Nev., looked at her through wild, almost crazy, eyes. He reared when she approached. It seemed hopeless.

"Something was telling me not to quit," Dayton said, "and the message was pretty strong then that I shouldn't."

The program helps keep the wild herds healthy by culling the numbers down, but the horses are indeed wild at first.

But slowly, she earned his trust, through labor, love and a little bit of old-fashioned, leathery toughness. She stomped at his shed, establishing her as the boss, and then, later, tried to hug him. It took a long time, but Reno began to accept the hugs and the groundwork required of all mustangs. She will ride him occasionally, using the deep breathing a friend taught her to control her fear, but not in the competition.

There are always setbacks. He threw her the other day, and it still hurts. A lot. But he feels what she feels. If she's angry, he stays away, and if she's scared, sometimes he nudges her.

It will cost her every dime to her name, and maybe a few donations, and some loans, to get him down to Fort Worth for the show. But now she can't imagine giving him up. Reno taught her not to give up on horses or on herself.

"Even though this was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, I have learned I can do this," she said, "and that is completely amazing in itself."

So she hopes to apply for some grants to have enough money to buy Reno when he is auctioned off on the competition's final day.

"Over the Rainbow" is the callback music you get when you dial her cell phone. The lyrics are about hope and dreams that you dare to dream. Dayton's finally daring once again.

How to help
Sandi Carr, a friend of Kathy Dayton's, is setting up a donation fund to help her get to Forth Worth, Texas, and possibly keep her mustang. To help, e-mail carrtwinsmom@msn.com or donate money through Paypal at crrottweilers@msn.com.