MARK WAITE / PVT Horse trainer Tom Shiloh runs Tiny Dancer, a nine-month-old mare, around his corral. Advertisement

Tiny Dancer, who formerly roamed the wilds of Central Nevada around Austin, wasn't too happy with her new surroundings in Pahrump after eight interim months in a wild horse facility at Ridgecrest, Calif.

"When I brought her back in the stock trailer, I had a camera in the cab of my truck to keep an eye on her. She bounced off the walls," trainer Tom Shiloh said.

Once back at his corral in Pahrump, Tiny Dancer, a nine-month-old mare, only wanted to escape back to the wilds.

"I brought her home last Friday. By Saturday afternoon I'd been bitten three times and kicked once," Shiloh said.

The work could all be worth it soon if Shiloh finishes well in the Extreme Mustang Trail Challenge, with more than $10,000 in cash and prizes. Fifty wild Mustangs who were never handled by trainers, were assigned to horse trainers at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's facility in Ridgecrest Feb. 13-14. Trainers must show how well their horse was broken on May 15 at the George Ingalls Equestrian Event Center in Norco, Calif.

Applicants were rejected if they had any alleged history of cruelty to animals or humans. They must meet BLM wild horse and burro adoption requirements.

Shiloh said he trains remedial mustangs for the Nevada Wild Horse Advocates, a nonprofit organization that handles those wild horses who are a problem to adopt. Many end up being sent to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Shiloh said his 40 years of experience training horses and an acquaintance with international horse show judge Art Gaytan of Pahrump helped him enter the elite competition.

"I used to break a lot of them. I was a trainer for the top quarterhorse ranch in the nation back in '89 and '90 and at that time I had five or six individuals, 200 domestic head and 38 mustangs," Shiloh said.

Shiloh hopes to be riding Tiny Dancer sometime this week.

"We named her Tiny Dancer because she spends so much time on her hind legs, doesn't go anywhere but where I want her to go," Shiloh said.

Tiny Dancer was tied up to an innertube at the corral for the first week, which Shiloh said releases a lot of the stress.

"You couldn't even touch her the first day. It took three days. You only go as fast as they want to go," Shiloh said.

But training a horse carefully and slowly prevents problems later on, he said.

"Her first instinct when I grab her is to defend herself," Shiloh said. "To her I was just a predator, trying to hurt her."

Shiloh plans to spend an hour and a half to two hours a day, training his horse.

Eventually Shiloh blindfolded Tiny Dancer before he saddled her. After a week, he was able to place the saddle on her without a blindfold.

But Shiloh said, "Yesterday she done took my knee cap off, the reason being I got a little bit too far back behind the saddle."

Though he dodged the horse's kick, Shiloh said, "I felt the breeze go by."

After a week, Shiloh said Tiny Dancer had a non-aggressive posture. There were other signs the mare was starting to follow his commands, lifting a leg while running around the corral, or lifting up an ear.

"As a rule a mustang will start out running instead of bucking because their natural instinct is to outrun a predator," Shiloh said. "Only then, when they see they can't outrun you, will they try to buck."

A lot of the training is during the ground work, before he actually mounts the horse, Shiloh said. While taking that first ride would seem to be the major breakthrough to training Tiny Dancer, Shiloh said it's not.

"Quite the breakthrough is laying her down. There's a way you lay a horse down that's non-intrusive and non-aggressive," Shiloh said. "For one split second she's totally defenseless and dependent on you. There is a way to do it where you don't hurt the horse and I want to stress that. You don't want to be too aggressive about it."

Eventually, Shiloh hopes to ride her into the Spring Mountains.

While Shiloh also trains domestic horses, he said in some ways they're more difficult than training a wild one.

"It's 50/50. The reason being is on a domestic horse they lose all their respect for human beings as a rule, because domestic horse people will spoil them and they will hurt you faster than a wild horse will do, only because they are not afraid of you and they will get on top of you. A wild horse will try to get away from you," Shiloh said.

Wild horses are known for their stamina more than domestic horses.

Shiloh said he wants to adopt a wild horse after the competition, though some have been auctioned off for up to $45,000.

"The old saying is there is no such thing as second place. I plan on winning this thing. I have trained horses for close to 40 years. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But in my mind, when I get up there, if I don't win, it's beside the point. The horse will be a mode that she should be in," Shiloh said.