When I had my first encounter with this black stallion, whom I later named ‘Midnight’, it was a surreal moment. Previously, I had photographed another band of wild Mustangs; sadly they were rounded up by the BLM and shipped off to Mustang holding facilities. So I was on a new quest to find another herd of Mustangs living in the wild.
I had seen Midnight’s herd off on this hillside near Carson City, NV. I drove my car along a dirt road and came upon his herd of 9 horses. As soon as I got out of the car, Midnight just marched right up to me. Realizing he was a stallion I slowly backed away, but he just kept approaching. I’m definitely respectful of stallions, especially wild ones, as their main job in life is to protect their herd. As he got closer to me, I stuck my hand out very slowly for him to sniff and spoke to him softly letting him know I was not a predator. After a few moments of him basically “checking me out”, he had had enough and walked back to his herd. I then spent about 2 hours photographing the horses, but keeping a respectful distance from them. After seeing Midnight that day, I was in love. He was one of the most beautiful black stallions I have ever seen in my life. He looked to be of Friesian descent. Long black mane and tail, not a speck of white on him anywhere, and feathered fetlocks. He had a very gentle and friendly demeanor with his foals and seemed very tolerant of my presence.
For several days that week I went out to photograph Midnight’s herd. When I would first walk toward them, Midnight would always nonchalantly walk near me and giving me a once over. After getting the OK from him, his herd would slowly move in my direction. One day I just sat on a rock and watched the horses peacefully grazing on the grass. An Appaloosa type mare walked towards me with her baby black foal that had to be less than a month old. The foal laid down right next to me and the mare, who didn’t seemed threatened, acted as if she enjoyed my presence and they just hung out with me for about a half hour. I couldn’t help but stare at the baby foal that looked just like the picture I had of my Morgan horse, Calypso. A month later when I encountered this herd again, this mare walked right up to me and allow me to pet her head and neck. I couldn’t help but wonder if this mare use to be a domesticated horse that was let go into the wild, but that’s another story.
During my time photographing Midnight’s herd, I’ve come across a number of new bands of Mustangs to follow. On many occasions I’ve seen a group of young bachelor stallions trying to get close to Midnight’s herd to steal a mare or two, but he would have none of it. Midnight is very protective of his mares and foals and has no problem going into fighting mode to keep his herd safe. In 2 years, his herd has grown from 9 to 17 horses, with one being another stallion, which usually brings up to back of the herd when they migrate to water.
One special day, I came across another herd of horses grazing near Midnight’s band. The stallion of this new band looked exactly like Midnight. The only difference was this new stallion had a star on his head and a patch of white on his hind leg. If it wasn’t for those markings, I could not tell them apart. They had to be blood brothers. So I named this new black stallion “Midnight Star”, because of the star on his forehead. He too, is a sight to behold and it’s interesting to watch the interaction of these 2 stallions. They’ll squeal and run up to each other. Then after a few moments of sniffing and pawing the air, they would walk back to their herds without so much of a scuffle. Their behavior wasn’t so much as they were happy to see each other, it was more of “I know we’re related, I respect that, but stay away from my herd”. And that was that. The making of a black horse dynasty.