LA CENTER — The first night Madison Villines brought home Tucker, the 1-year-old mustang refused to leave his trailer.
“He was really skittish,” Madison, 16, said. “He was really tiny and small, but his eyes were huge and so white.”
It was late at night, pitch black and raining. Not only was it Tucker’s first time at the Villineses’ farm, but he had practically no contact with humans before Madison and her family picked him up from the Bureau of Land Management’s corrals in Burns, Ore., earlier that day.
Within a month, Madison knew she wanted to adopt Tucker. Within two months, the two were nearly inseparable. Within 90 days, they were award-winning best friends.
But first, Tucker had to leave his trailer.
Madison stayed by Tucker’s side and calmly tried to lure him out. After about a half-hour, he finally exited. Madison stayed with him a bit longer, sitting on a bucket and feeding him. Once he got over his initial nerves, Tucker’s personality started to show.
“He’s really curious,” Madison said. “He wants to see new things.”
Tucker joined the Villineses’ farm through Extreme Mustang Makeover, a Mustang Heritage Foundation-sponsored competition in which trainers work with horses to display the trainability of mustangs to find a suitable adopter.
Tucker is the first horse Madison has trained, although she has grown up around horses.
In fact, she has grown up around quite a few animals. Her family’s current roster: 12 chickens, eight horses, five cows, three cats, three pigs, two birds, one goldfish and one duck. In the past, the family also has had llamas, alpaca and other animals.
“If you name it, we’ve had it,” said Kevin Villines, Madison’s father.
That’s partly why the family moved to La Center from Camas about eight years ago. Kevin Villines grew up in the country and didn’t like living in a more populated area. Torri Renae Villines, Madison’s mother, rides horses, and with the 16 acres of property they bought, they could own some horses of their own. The Villineses’ farm isn’t a working one, though. It’s more of a “hobby farm,” Madison said.
“We just try to keep all the animals fat and happy,” she said.
Madison said she enjoys living in La Center, among her fat, happy animals and silence.
“You really have your own space. It’s not too crammed,” she said. “There’s no sound — just country.”
Madison also said she likes the responsibility that comes with living on a farm, adding that she was raised to want to help. Her father is a paramedic and firefighter with the Camas-Washougal Fire Department. This school year, Madison will be a junior at La Center High School, and she will participate in the Fire Cadet Program through the Clark County Skills Center. She wants to be a paramedic and firefighter, she said.
“Helping people gives you an impact on the world,” she said.
Helping was partly what led her to the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition. Madison said she remembers seeing a competition in Portland when she was younger,but also wanted the chance to help a horse get adopted. She didn’t know she would be the one doing the adopting until she had spent some time with Tucker, though.
At first, Madison spent 30-minute blocks with him. She said she wanted to establish a relationship, letting him know that she wasn’t going to harm him and that she was his source for food. But she also didn’t want to overwhelm him, as he was experiencing so many new things at once.
After Madison built up some trust with Tucker, she and her family could get him in and out of his trailer, and would bring him to friends’ houses. He seemed excited to visit new places and see new people.
“He’s like a puppy dog,” Madison said.
While building up trust, Madison also started training with Tucker for the groundwork competition, in which Tucker would have to perform a few jumps, walk while crossing his legs, hug Madison, partially climb on a stump and bow and more. Madison said she trained with Tucker most of the allotted 90 days, although sometimes other responsibilities came up.
The regional competition was July 24 and 25 in Nampa, Idaho. While Madison has performed with her school’s equestrian team since her freshman year, this was the first competition in which she participated and the attention was solely on her. Madison said she was a little nervous, although on a precompetition walkthrough in the arena, Tucker didn’t seem to have any issues.
“He seemed stress free,” she said. “I believed in him. Once the music hit, it was just like home.”
Madison and Tucker cruised to the title, finishing first in all three youth contests: handling and conditioning, trail and freestyle. She finished tops in the competition by 30-plus points. She received three blue ribbons, $1,200 and a gold belt buckle that might look at home on a professional wrestler. Madison said she hasn’t decided what to do with the money yet. She might save it and put it toward a car or buy stuff for Tucker, as she thinks he deserves to share in the victory, as well, she said.
Next up for two, Madison said she’s going to let Tucker grow a bit more and then see if he will train with her for riding competitions. Madison said she also wants to compete in the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition next year. She wouldn’t mind adopting more horses in the future, either, she added.
“I think I’ll own them the rest of my life,” she said. “They’re easy to work with and low maintenance.”
Participating in the makeover competition is one way to adopt horses. After the competition, participants in the youth division have the option of adopting their horse or putting the horse up for auction, for which they would receive half of the winning bid. Competitors in the adult competition, for those 18 and older, have to put the horses up for auction, but trainers regularly bid to adopt their partners. Madison said she didn’t consider auctioning off Tucker.
“He just makes me happy,” she said. “Sometimes when I feel like I need to get away from everything, I just go sit with him.”
Tucker seems to feel similarly about Madison. Even if she allows some give while holding his harness so he can mosey around, he’ll still walk right up to her and nuzzle his head on her arm and hand.
“We picked him up on, I think, April 8, and within a month, I knew I was keeping him,” Madison said.
“He became my best friend.”
