Introduction

    My name is Kelsey Ford. I am now a senior in high school from McMinnville, Oregon and have grown up loving animals and the open spaces outside; hunting, camping, and anything that gets me out into the fresh air or around dogs and horses is what I love to do.
    I am one of 35 local trainers to have participated in the 2012 Teens and Oregon Mustangs program, a nonprofit organization dedicated to homing numbers of Oregon's wild horses and giving youth trainers the foundations they need for a future with these remarkable animals. This has been my first involvement not only with the program, but with horses altogether; I had only a few months to gain experience around horses before I jumped into training a mustang.
    The first couple of weeks working with my yearling were definitely a huge transitioning period for me, and some days I came home wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into. The road with my mustang Twist hasn't been easy, but I wouldn't give it up for anything-- and I can't imagine ever stopping. Twist will be the first of many mustangs that I hope to train, and he has probably trained me just as much as I have him.

"Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride,

Friendship without envy,

Or beauty without vanity?

Here, where grace is served with muscle

And strength by gentleness confined

He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity.

There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent.

There is nothing so quick, nothing more patient."

~Ronald Duncan, "The Horse"