From Free Spirited
"C'mere, Dakota." Fifteen-year-old Brandon Ridley held out his hand to a scruffy bay gelding. The horse eyed him, then dropped his head to graze. "All he wants to do is eat," muttered Brandon, tramping after him in jeans and unlaced sneakers. Across the bluegrass pasture on a sunlit summer morning in Kentucky, a half-dozen other kids carried halters and tried to catch their horses, softly calling: "Hey, Eagle," "Here, Brook ... Come on, boy."The horses didn't want to be caught. They were mustangs, rounded up on the open ranges of Wyoming. The kids were "wild" too, from the rough streets of Lexington's inner city, where the air rings with occasional gunshots, not with whinnies.
Wild kids. Wild horses. Put them together, and all hell can break loose, right? But the street-smart kids and the free-spirited horses share something else -- a desire to care and be cared for. That's where the Mustang Troop comes in. It teaches at-risk youngsters, ages 9 to 18, to ride and tend to horses.
Every year, on summer weekdays, the Lexington Police Activities League buses kids about 15 minutes outside the city to the Kentucky Horse Park, a sprawling, state-owned equine theme park. The youngest kids, the rookies, have never touched, much less ridden, a horse. Here, they learn to check the swagger and swearing of the streets.
"Anyone who thinks they're tough," longtime staffer Todd Waronicki tells the kids every year, "will find out that a 1,000-pound animal is much tougher." The barn manager assigns each child a horse for the summer, then teaches them ground rules: Don't raise your voice. Move slowly and methodically. Pat the horses on the shoulder when they do something right. The kids usually start out scared. For the mustangs, the tendency to spook is even stronger. The most volatile horses have to be "gentled" by staff before kids can come near them.
"Eagle, it's okay. It's not gonna do nothing to you!" said Deshaun Tucker, 15, spraying hair polish on her horse's coat as he jerked away from the spray can. "He doesn't like it to be touched by his ears," she explained.
Deshaun has attention problems, struggles at school and was so shy she rarely spoke when she came here three years ago. For her, the "Big Barn" has become an oasis of calm, quiet and order. "When I got here, I was really scared. Now I love it. I get to take care of horses that have never been helped before, and I get to love 'em."
New Hope
Belting out the hip-hop song "Star," the kids clip-clopped to the beat in a ragged line. Dust rose in the dim light as the Troopers kicked their horses into a slow trot."Keep the line straight!" roared instructor Monica Legere, rehearsing the riders for a horse fair later in the week. Every year, they train until they get it right. The Troop's cavalry-style drill team has ridden at the Gator Bowl and in President Clinton's inaugural parade, and they join in the Kentucky Derby parade each spring.
"I get nervous," said 12-year-old James Woolfolk. "I'm afraid I'm gonna fall off and embarrass myself." Yet it is falling off -- and getting back on -- that becomes a new way to gain respect, one that doesn't involve fists, guns or threats.
Now the kids drilled their horses and lined up in the center of the ring before breaking for lunch. As they rode back to the barn, Anthony Ellis, 14, leaned down to give his horse, Brook, a pat. "Good job today," he murmured. It was a simple gesture. But kindness and empathy are not necessarily hallmarks of Anthony's neighborhood in Lexington's East End.
"Where we come from, you didn't show your emotions," said Rodriquez Smith, who was in the Troop from age 11 to 18. "It was so hard for me to pet the horse, show some affection. I started with the horse, and then with my little sister, with other people."
Lessons like this come slowly, and for some, it takes all summer. When the Mustang Troop first started in 1994, Todd Waronicki wondered who was more uncontrollable, the horses or the kids. Horses could buck and kick, but kids could cut each other with words and hard glances. Even a harmless "yo mama" joke can quickly escalate into a scuffle. A few years back, two kids shot off firecrackers near the barn. They were supposed to be watching a blacksmith shoe a horse, which is already fraught with potential danger. The animal stands on three feet and the blacksmith holds the fourth, in an easy position to be kicked or trampled should the horse spook. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the kids were expelled.
Following the afternoon's drills, the young riders untacked their mounts and led them to the pasture. It had been a good day. Nobody got thrown off a horse, and only one kid was suspended -- for spraying saddle oil into another Trooper's eyes. Although they don't keep records, Waronicki says that many of the 150 kids who've come through the program have, with scholarship help and Troop recommendations, gone on to college or good jobs. Some even come back here to work.
"When I look at my life," said Smith, who has four children of his own and is a groom at prestigious Claiborne Farm (home to the legendary Secretariat), "the Mustang Troop is what made me what I am now."
Sometimes kids beg to stay at the end of the day instead of going home. And when August comes, they are sad to say good-bye to their horses.
Yet every June, as a fresh group of youngsters lead the horses to their stalls and pigeons flutter in the rafters above, the Big Barn resounds with new hope.