The Spirit of the American Mustang saved my life. I began my horsemanship journey with Saddles in Service, a nonprofit based out of San Diego that provides natural horsemanship lessons to help Veterans and first responders with PTSD and suicide prevention. I served eleven years in the United States Army as an Infantryman. When I left the military, I was lost and after two years of civilian life and family loss to suicide I needed to find help. I found my saving grace with the Mustangs and Wranglers of Saddles in Service.

Beginning my journey I had no prior experience working with horses in any capacity past feeding them and mucking stalls as a kid. I didn’t know what to expect as I entered the round ring with one of the rescued Border Patrol Mustangs, Waylen. The lesson began and this amazing animal was running circles around me and after a few turns I stood silently in the middle of the ring. Waylen slowly walked up to me and dropped his head in the small of my back. Tears immediately began to fill my eyes, and in that moment, I knew that my life would never be the same. This Mustang knew I was hurting and right here I started to put the pieces back together. I have worked as a volunteer and a program participant for the past eight months and I have been so fortunate to work with some amazing horses, but my favorites are the Mustangs.

My thoughts on Mustangs honestly were derived from the animated kids’ movie “Spirit”. My understanding of these horses was that they were wild animals that needed to be “broke” to work with. I have learned that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I have worked with Apache, Junior, Waylen, Cosmo, Hollywood, Bear, Liberty and Yonz. All these amazing horses have such prominent personalities and are full of life. They are not broken at all. They are trained and intelligent and partners to everyone that are lucky enough to work with them. Working with these animals and learning how to ride with them has been one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. I have found peace and comfort on the backs of these Mustangs. There is something special about them that is hard to explain. I attribute it to our shared past experiences. As a member of the Military, you experience the freedom of being a civilian before your service and then you enlist and everything changes. Your training begins and you learn to become a member of a team and be apart of something bigger than yourself. I feel Mustangs parallel that journey with running wild, being caught and trained to be working animals. With the rescued Border Patrol Mustangs at Saddles in Service our connection goes even further as we both have left that service behind. Now we have the beautiful opportunity to provide each other with purpose and a life of shared healing past our service. Through my experiences with these Mustangs, I have gone from learning the basics of groundwork, riding to even herding cattle. These animals have guided me through this journey as active participants, showing me how to find patience and compassion for them and also myself.

Working with the Mustangs grounds me to the spirit of the American West and what it means to learn western horsemanship. I am proud to work with these horses and will jump at every opportunity involving these incredible animals.

The Spirit of the American Mustang is within me, and I am free to live this life because of it.

-Sean Puckett