by Lin Sutherland

"In the first month, you have to keep them from hurting themselves. In the second month, you have to get them to trust you. For all of that time, you realize this is completely different from training a domestic horse."

Dan Keen is training his first wild mustang for the Extreme Mustang Makeover (Will Rogers Coliseum, Fort Worth, Sept. 18-21). An experienced horseman, trainer, clinician, farrier and riding instructor who grew up on horses on a ranch in Fayetteville, Tx, Keen decided to take part in this now well known event organized by the Mustang Foundation  to raise money to save this treasure from disappearing. Two hundred men and women drove to Oklahoma in June to pick up their randomly selected mustang, delivered fresh from the ranges of the American West. They have 100 days to train them, and the top ten horses get auctioned for good money, to benefit the Mustang Heritage Foundation. And the winning trainer, who has brought his mustang along the most, gets a good purse too.

When Dan arrived, the terrified horses were flying around the pens, hurling themselves at the confining bars they'd never known. Only browns, bays and reds were left, all the pretty paints, grullas, palominos and duns having been picked out in previous adoption sales held by the BLM.

Dan spied a blood bay with his head down, scenting the dirt. He caught his eye.

"His eye was intelligent, sensitive, and as soft as a scared mustang's can be, and I thought, 'I hope it's that one'." Suddenly the bay rushed at the stock panel and took a good leap at it. He almost made it. He was a helluva jumper, noticed Dan, who trains high dollar hunter/jumpers as well as most everything else. "When my selected number was called," Dan remembers, "I was shocked. It was the one I wanted, that jumping bay."

It must have been kismet, because Dan and that jumping bay have grown so close that the thought of putting him in the EMM auction at the end of the event brings tears to the eyes of this rough-tough cowboy. "I've learned more from him than any other horse I've ever trained," he says with respect in his voice. "I've trained so many horses, but this one, I have ice water in my veins. I lie awake at night thinking how can I do this better?"

In the first week at the Keen's Double Tree Ranch in Round Top, the bay horse got a name: Troubador. A troubador is a traveling lyric poet or singer. There's a George Strait song by that name, and the Keen family has one, Dan's uncle, songwriter Robert Earl Keen. The travelling troubador tradition began in the Middle Ages and of what did they mostly sing? Love.

It's pretty much only love that will tame a mustang.

"If they don't trust you, forget it. They are scared of anything with a pulse," Dan points out. "I could stroke him with a stick, a flag, a blanket -- nothing [-- but let my hand travel down that stick and my finger touch him and he quivered. His first instinct is to bolt to safety."

And a mustang can move faster than you can blink. "If your timing and position isn't perfect, you are going to be in deep trouble. Before you know it, you'll be hit in the head with a hoof - back or front. They can strike as fast as they can kick. And he can kick with impeccable precision."

"Position and Timing," Dan reiterates. "I'm always at his shoulder, in front of the kick and behind the strike. I'm always 100% aware. Because he is. There must be exact timing in your approach and retreat. And I did approach and retreat a thousand times."

"The good part is, he was a blank slate. Nothing to fix," says this experienced problem horse fixer.

Dan prepared Troubador extensively on the ground with things like water from a hose, ropes, and of course round pen work, getting him used to everything.

"I haltered him and unhaltered him over and over, 'till he came to me for it. I gave him lots of affection. And when it went past the fear, he looked at me as his saviour."

Culled from a herd of 2800 mustangs on the Nevada range, Troubador is an impressive well put together mustang. When I first saw him in August, I liked him right away. He was so together. He was so zen-aware of his surroundings. He was a being not just with high intelligence, but with snap. "This horse craves a teacher," Dan emphasized. "He can do anything."

When Troubador was first riddewn, there was no bridle or halter on him. Just the saddle in the round pen. Dan didn't want him to feel double-trapped.

"He never bucked, he squirted. He could squirt forward in the blink of an eye. But he never bucked." That might be attributed to Dan's wisdom in starting him. Dan 'screwed down' in the saddle, as the cowboys say, and just let him go wherever he wanted until he got comfortable.

On the 4th of July, Dan rode Troubador in the parade in Round Top. "I knew he was ready. He wasn't scared of distractions or noises."

Kelley Keen, Dan's wife, commented, "I thought, 'This man I love is going to kill himself,' but you have to be a risk-taker to train horses, and he's very good. I trust him --  like Troubador does." She proudly took Alley, their four year old, down to main street and photographed the event.

"He wasn't scared," Dan says proudly. "He was focused on me."

Did he ever make a mistake with him, I asked. Well yes, he admits. "One day I was sitting on him flicking the rope every which way on him. I flicked his head and then his ears and he shook his head violently. He didn't like it a bit. Aha! I thought.  I've found a hole. So I flicked his ears again. He lowered his head and shook his ears harder. I kept at it. I did it again. Before the flick was done, he took his nose and put it between his hind legs and I was flying.  He dumped me good. Fractured three ribs. That was totally pilot error on my part. I pushed him too much. I should have stopped and listened to him."

That was then. Now Dan has now worked cows with Troubador. He can point and he'll jump up in his pick-up bed. A cattle truck came to the ranch and Dan pointed and Troubador climbed up noisy steel ramps through soupy cow pies to the second level.

On the day I visited Dan, it was hotter than a Saturday night special, but Dan was out there working Troubador in the roping arena. Rain or blistering heat, he works him two times a day. And seeing them work together is a thing of beauty. Dan is an extremely balanced, confident, relaxed rider, and well, frankly, he's not too hard on the eyes.  And neither is Troubador. I watched Dan lope him for 30 minutes in tighter and tighter circles before he executed rollbacks, sliding stops and sailing over jumps. Dan trusts Troubador so much that on one jump he simply spread his arms wide as he sailed over the rail. On another, his ever-ringing cell phone went off, and he answered it and was talking on the phone as he went over the jump. Kelley got a photo of that.

When we all posed for a photo together, Dan stood on his saddle and spread his arms out wide with a big grin. It was a gesture of pure triumph and joy. He was standing in the saddle on a beautiful horse he loved. Not just any horse. One that had been a wild mustang on the ranges of Nevada 100 days ago.

More information at www.extrememustangmakeover.com and www.mustangheritagefoundation.org