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Sprit was one of nine BLM wild horses selected to appear at the Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games. He was gathered off the range in June, 2002 and was picked up by the
Olympic Horse Project in August. The project was run entirely by volunteers who gentled nine horses and three burros for a western heritage display at the Soldier Hollow venue. They had to be desensitized to all the Olympic hoopla, various "strangers" caring for them and some 20,000 people a day passing by, looking at them.
Spirit was named for a reason. He tried to jump out of the BLM loading chute and got his front legs and head over the top which gave us all heart failure. Fortunately he was as smart as he was spirited and with some patient approaches he reached a point where he enjoyed interacting with people.
Spirit's big breakthrough involved clicker training. Being bright, Spirit's curiosity was peaked with clicker and he really invested in the games and training. Before too long the horse we were worried about making the grade in this project came to be its star pupil.
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Early contact in the LRTC pens
Learning clicker games can be fun
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