Photographers Discover Wild Horses in Oregon Ready for Close-Ups
Photographers Maggie and Farrel Rothauge have discovered a unique opportunity to capture the beauty of wild horses in Oregon's high desert. Their encounters with the 'Hollywood Herd' offer a rare glimpse into the lives of these majestic creatures.
Maggie and Farrel Rothauge could have felt threatened by a wild horse that seemed to be following them down a desert trail. But a larger herd walked nearby too.
Farrel Rothauge says, “We had two stallions greet us, right beside us, with a new foal on the ground. The stallion could have pushed us off. No, he went right down the trail. We just stepped off the trail and he went right past us and body checked the other one that was following us up the trail.”
They’re certain the stallion had protected them from the other horse. Their hearts were sealed.
“Those two bought us,” he says.
The two had come to southeastern Oregon to photograph wild horses. They never expected to have a wild herd follow Farrel down a trail while Maggie took pictures.
The Rothauges are part of a small and devoted group of photographers that has discovered one of the easiest places to take pictures of wild horses.
The 'Hollywood Pasture'
They go to the “Hollywood pasture.”
The land is really just the arid corner of an expanse of high desert just west of Steens Mountain where a band of wild horses frequently comes to graze. It’s also easy to find, sitting right next to Highway 205 south of Frenchglen.
The South Steens Herd has been nicknamed the “Hollywood Herd” for the horses’ seeming willingness to pose for pictures and take gawkers in stride.
“If I would have known going out and seeing them in the wild was this easy, I would have been out here many years ago,” says Maggie Rothauge.
The couple drives six hours from their home in the south Willamette Valley to visit the horses. They make the journey six to eight times a year and spend several days at a time watching horses.
“They’re so fun to watch for hours and we do,” she adds.
Maggie Rothauge has seen them so often she knows them as individuals and has named them.
She watched a colt she named Cruiser from his first week after birth until the day three years later his band drove him away.
“You become attached,” she says. “It’s like extended family and these guys are.”
Cruiser’s banishment astonished Rothauge. She realized this was an event in every colt’s life that humans hardly ever get to see. At the moment a colt grows mature enough to become competition for female attention, the stallion drives him off.
Originally Posted By OPB