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CONFLICT!
On July 27th, 2005, LRTC volunteers responded to a report of a band of horses that had become "split" along a long length of barbed wire fencing. Vandals had broken open a gate. some members of a band of horses walking along the fence line had ended up on the wrong side of the fence. When the volunteers arrived all that was left inside the fenced area was the lead mare of the Damonte Roans band with her yearling colt frantically pacing along the outside of the fence.
After several hours' work on foot the volunteers were able to push the mare back to the damaged gate and move her onto the correct side of the fence. Unfortunately about the same time the colt spotted a band of nearby horses. With his attention taken off mom, he took off to join the other horses. The mare naturally followed and ended up in what the volunteers thought might have been the Geiger Buckskins band. Now "Bubba," the Geiger Buckskins stallion, and "Sentinel," the Damonte Roans stallion, were the two biggest rivals in the valley. Both were very successful stallions. Sentinel's band numbered 14 and Bubba's band numbered 22... at least they did before the "switch." Volunteers thought they saw the mare and possibly her foal in Bubba's band but they were always too far away to get a confirmed sighting. On August 2nd, Del Brandt and I were preparing to make the water run when Bubba's band came filing by on their way to one of the LRTC wildlife water tanks. It sure looked like Sentinel's mare was with them. I drove over to the tank to get a closer look and confirmed it was the mare. I walked in among the horses to make sure her colt was also in the group and I observed him playing with one of the buckskin band colts when Bubba and the mare started heading west. I looked west across the valley to see Sentinel and his band approaching. Normally the two rivals just stare at each other from opposite sides of the valley but Sentinel seemed to notice his mare and came at a dead run across the valley. Bubba zig-zagged back and forth a couple of times, sending the mare back to his group, then charged out to meet Sentinel. The two closed in on each other like a couple of jousters. I was able to get a few of photos with a telephoto lens although most of the time the two stallions were just faint blurs inside a growing cloud of dust. Eventually Sentinel must have noticed that the mare had departed with the rest of the group as he stopped challenging Bubba. The two stallions just looked at each other for several seconds, then each galloped away towards their respective bands. The mare was headed back towards her colt that was still playing on the back side of the hill, oblivious to the whole adventure. Sentinel then took his band to another water tank in another section of the range and all was quiet. Geiger Buckskins filing by headed for water.
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