Eighteen-year-old Maleah Redmann is a self-taught mustang trainer. And she has spent the last two-and-half years working to find wild horses loving homes.
“Put a good foundation on this horse to make it safe and handleable,” she said. “So then, I can give them their dream horse, and in return, I get to know I found a horse a home and got it out of holding.”
Mustangs aren’t your average show horse. They are naturally free-roaming animals found in the West, and they are protected by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Maleah says she uses patience and passion to turn mustangs into adoptable animals.
“I take, kind of, what I’ve learned from what other people have done, and then I apply it to that individual horse and find what works,” she explained. “If something doesn’t work the first try, I try a little bit different until I figure out what works for that horse.”
And Maleah says she has three horses herself.
“All that time with them and learning from them really, kind of, helps me build a bond with them and understand them,” she said.
As a senior in high school in Wisconsin, Maleah is looking to pursue a career in this field. She wants to go to vet school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and study exotic or large animals.
“I have so much to learn,” she said. “I think I’ve barely scraped the surface.”