Flash Lightning

Some years ago, Janelle went with her niece and nephew to the wilds of South Steens to see some horses. She took video of Cruiser and Jorja with their colt, Ryder, and another stallion, whose range name was Lightning. It was fortuitous that she only recorded this one video as all were rounded up in 2022. Janelle took Ryder from the corrals to be her personal horse. She often told me stories about his family when we went to the corrals. Through an almost magical series of events, Jorja and Cruiser, their foal, Tupalo Honey, and Lightning all came to Skydog. We already have a mustang named Lightning, so we call this golden boy Flash Lightning.

It's been wonderful to see so many photographs and videos of him on the range with Cruiser's band, thanks to the photographers who sent them. They're a wonderful resource in identifying bands and telling the history of these amazing horses on the range. The most incredible part is that Flash Lightning was Cruiser's Lieutenant in the wild and they were very close.

Photographer Mustang Meg tells his story:

Lightning and his roan buddy Rusty started trailing Cruiser’s band in 2018. Lightning appointed himself as Lieutenant to Cruiser. By 2021, he stayed on with Cruiser, while Rusty hooked up with the Wovoka band.

We started noticing a hierarchy change. For a while, it looked like Lightning was trying to one-up Cruiser until it started to appear they were developing mutual respect, cooperatively overseeing the band, and defending it. It became evident that Lightning was no longer Cruiser’s Lieutenant. They were becoming what we know as a “dual-stallion” or “co-band stallion” team. One does not behave as a subordinate to the other, both have equal leverage, as we’ve seen with other dual stallion bands.

The day I pinned his range name, Lightning was a young bachelor standing in the golden light of sunset with other stallions. They were hyper-tuned to my form among the sage as they were making their way to a waterhole. Stopping every so often at full attention, they assessed my every move, snorting -  a primal sound I can feel down to my shoes. The golden stallion glowing in the late sun stood out among the roan bachelors. Cautiously wild, he was watching my every move. If I turned my head or moved in a way he didn’t like, he would morph into a dust cloud.

After the 2022 gather, I lost track of Lightning, but recently learned he had gone through several homes and training, which seemed to instead enforce his “wild”. I’m grateful someone recognized him and contacted Skydog, where he is safe and with familiar horses he ran with for years.

Between Oregon and Upstate New York, he'd been in several different homes with five different trainers, but he never gentled down. Flash is one of those mustangs who cannot accept domestication. The efforts to tame him were hard on him. Consequently, he was extremely scared of people and needed space -  a perfect candidate for sanctuary. His final trainer/home, a wonderful girl, understood this and reached out to us.

Flash Lightning was just about as far from us as he could be in upstate New York. The haul was a huge cost, but we would go to any lengths to bring him home - and our generous donors agreed. He let out some loud whinnies when he arrived Skydog. Ryder, who was in a pen nearby, answered back loudly, recognizing his call. That gave me goosebumps.

He bolted out of the trailer so fast, I was barely able to record his unloading. With a mouthful of alfalfa, he ran around snorting like a dragon, as if to announce his arrival with a big exclamation point❗️before hiding himself in the trees.  In a couple of weeks, we hope to buddy him up with a mare of his own. Then we’ll return him to wild lands that will feel like home. It’s an honor for us to make it possible for him to take his venerable place at Cruiser's side, greet Jorja, and be in a family again.

Flash is a golden ray of light in a dark and complicated world for these wild ones. Let's rejoice that he made it back and thank you for all the support for him on this very long and bumpy road.

#skydogflash

American Mustangs and Burros Need Your Help

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and Senators and urge them to support these bills:

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, commonly known as the “Farm Bill”. There are several important provisions for animals in that omnibus federal law, including the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act. It is currently illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. The SAFE Act would extend the ban to equines and shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches and stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs.

Bills from the previous 118th Congress that we hope will be introduced again this year:

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 3656) This bill will prohibit the use of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft in the management of wild mustangs and burros on public lands, and require a report on humane alternatives to current management practices.

Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.