Lynn Scott
Starting Sakima the Brumby
Exhilaration is not enough to describe how I feel at the moment. I truly have achieved a relationship with my wild brumby Sakima that we all dream of as young girls and never achieve. The big difference is I am doing it with my wild brumby Sakima that has never accepted being handled by a person.
When Sakima, as a wild horse took his chance for freedom several weeks ago and then decided to return to our farm and our mob of horses I knew that he trusted me and had bonded with me. Having him follow me down the mountain will always bring a lump in my throat.
His trust to come home gave me the confidence to decide that it was time to start Sakima. Wow, was I apprehensive? Yes. Did I know what I was doing? No.
Sakima the Brumby’s Escape
What do you do when you lose a part of your family? You grieve; you don’t believe it and all those assorted feelings. This is exactly what happened on a Sunday not too long ago. Sakima, my wild brumby exited my life in dramatic circumstances.
My manager became over confident with my wild brumby that he was so adjusted to life on our farm that he would not leave through our rainforest that leads to a National Park. With an open gate an invitation too inviting to ignore Sakima was on his way to freedom.
I went up in the afternoon to find no horse and an open gate that lead to thousands of hectares of wild bush and rugged mountain ridges. I knew immediately he had gone.
Calmness in a crisis is important and business had well equipped me to contain my emotions and the feeling of dread that enveloped my body. This is a wild horse that won’t allow anyone to catch him and had only just started to let me touch his head and allow some human contact. Even if we found him how did I get him back to the farm?
Questions for later. Let’s find him first.
Sakima the Brumby’s First Months – Part 2
As the weeks passed into the months and the progress with Sakima was measured in micro steps, I began to cherish our time together. No phones, no emails, no demands just he and I and the wind and the birds and wallabies that share our farm.
It was now Spring and this day the wind was blowing in my hair, hot and intense. Does this mean a hot summer?
The cows would come running when they saw me, hoping for a free hand out. Their bubs, the first Speckle Parks growing up in Australia so far from their Canadian home.
Sakima would push them away with his ears flattened and if the calves ignored him he would lunge at them with great intent, scattering them. Then he would approach me and just stand spending time. Waiting for nothing, doing nothing was good for my soul and fabulous for the trust that we were building together. Winding down, switching off and forgetting work and the hecticness of life.
Sakima the Brumby’s Journey
Sakima had joined the herd and gradually gained acceptance with the other horses. He was not so welcoming to human approaches. He had learnt that people meant food and would follow the other horses in for a nightly free hand out, but his extreme fear of people dictated the level of contact – standing off and coming in when he felt I had safely retreated.
I frankly did not know what to do. I knew that I did not want to start him in the traditional manner or put him in the round yard and push him through Join Up and other pressure moves to make him submit to human control. I felt there had to be a fairer, gentler way to bring Sakima into the human world and for him to accept his loss of freedom.
I went in search and found Carolyn Resnick in the USA who had grown up with the mustangs and offered a method that involves working with your horse at total liberty in the paddock so the horse has a free choice as to the level and extent of the communication. The foundation of her method was how horses communicate in the wild as a herd and involved hours of just being with your horse doing nothing, as horses do.
Adopting Sakima – the Wild Horse
Do you ever do something in your life that makes no sense and could end in disaster but you push on regardless, despite the nagging thought of why am I doing this?
I still cannot answer why I made that first call about adopting a brumby and why when I heard about this tri coloured pinto I felt the compulsion to adopt him.
As I discussed his adoption, over several weeks the true nature of the problem with Sakima and why he had not long ago found a new home became apparent. This wild boy was one of the wildest and most fearful brumbies that had been captured in the Guy Fawkes National Park. After several months at the Save the Brumby adoption property the trainers had been able to do little with him in terms of halter starting and gentling him to accept the human touch. He would come in for his hay but fear drove him to avoid any close contact at any cost. He needed a special, understanding home and a place where no time restraints would be imposed on him as he joined the human world.
The Wild Horse – Sakima’s Journey with Creative by Design
There has to be more to Life than work.
Life is more than work and Creative by Design has to have a soul and a caring beyond its major purpose of helping people sort their lives of mess and chaos.
Being part of the Creative by Design team is more than solving our client’s storage problems.
We support various projects that make a difference to Australia as a country.
Over the years, Creative by Design has supported bird and animal sanctuaries, the bushfire victims of Victoria and indigenous health initiatives in the Northern Territory.
Lynn, one of the owners of Creative by Design, is passionate about the company being about more than just business. Every little effort to change things for the better makes a difference. Small steps add up to big steps.
So this year, Creative by Design adopted a wild brumby. Why?
