Wild Stallion Removed from Dayton Comes Home

Residents on Grosh Avenue in the Sutro area of Dayton realized that a bay stallion with a crooked blaze would eventually lose his freedom. The much-loved youngster was getting into trouble. He chased after a horseback rider and frequented the neighborhood for months, even when most other wild horses were up in the hills.

People were feeding him, which is against the law, and giving him water. He was “decorating” the neighborhood streets and visiting penned mares. Clearly, he had been kicked out of his family band because of his advancing maturity, as is the case with most wild males by the age of 2.

“Lightening,” as he had become known, was a horse in limbo, neither wild nor tame. Some of Lightening’s local admirers decided to become proactive. Two locals, Michelle and Daniel Gersten, approached members of the Wild Horse Preservation League and Resistance Training Concepts, asking for advice and help.

The Gerstens didn’t consider themselves future adopters. Their friends and neighbors, Mike and Kathy Kever, were eying the colt. After Mike Kever had a serious accident and was unable to work for a period of time, Michelle and Daniel decided to adopt Lightening. They already owned Honey, an older Virginia Range horse, and got a trainer for Honey, who was Dayton resident Tony Robertson.

Robertson, a native of Honduras, was adopted when he was 11, along with four other siblings by the Robertson family, who raised and trained Arabian horses in Stagecoach. Robertson’s experiences in life led him to develop his own method of training.

In Lightening’s case, members of the Wild Horse Preservation League still hoped that the horse would wander back into the wild, but arrangements were made to have him captured. Nevada Department of Agriculture brand inspector Chris Miller picked him up in December and promised to keep an eye on him during his stay at the Warm Springs Prison in Carson City.

He was gelded, and by the time of his release on Feb. 13, the adopters were so excited that they took two days off from work just to give him a proper homecoming. Robertson soon showed up to work with the youngster, getting him off on the right foot and starting with a few lessons to calm him down.

Originally Posted By RGJ