From never being touched by human hands to performing a routine, two local girls have taken time everyday to work with their yearling Mustangs from late summer through October.

The payoff for the girls could come later this month when eighth grader Shayla Enright and freshman Abby Brown will travel to Murfreesboro, Tenn. the weekend of Oct. 23 to compete in the 2009 Extreme Mustang Makeover Eastern Stampede.

The mission of the Mustang Heritage Foundation is to increase the adoption of mustangs to good homes. In keeping the mission of the Foundation, the Yearling Mustang Makeover has been created to place Nevada mustang yearlings in adoptive homes through a yearling training event.

Approximately $5,000 in prize money will be awarded during each competition. Following the competition the yearlings will be available for adoption. The girls have the option of adopting their mustang that they have trained, but neither girl seemed interested in doing so at the time of the interview.

Another purpose of the makeover event is to showcase the beauty, versatility and trainability of the unique breed of horse that we know as the American mustang.

Enright has been working with Cody Keller for a little over a year at his business, Keller Horsemanship, in Seymour. Keller has taught her pretty much everything that she knows and was the inspiratation in training a mustang.

Enright and her family went to Tennessee in July and brought back the mustang and within a week or two Enright had the horse caught and began the 100 day adventure of training a wild horse that had never been touched by human hands.

After two weeks she was able to put the saddle on Comanche and he didn’t buck at all.

Now she is able to put a bridle on and has taught him to jump, lunge trot in a circle and they go for daily road walks together.

“When training a horse it takes a lot of trust, respect and understanding,” said Enright who one day hopes to become an equine vet.

Enright is also able to ride her mustang and lay him down, which are both extremely tough tasks for a wild horse to learn.

“Mustangs are thought of as being untrainable and this challenge has shown that it can be done,” said Enright.

Also from Seymour is 14 year old Brown.

Brown wasn’t quite as lucky at first with her mustang, Ford. It was three weeks before she was able to catch the horse. “It was hardest at the beginning since he was so wild. Horse training isn’t easy and it can be frustrating,” said Brown.

Ford is extremely smart and tries to get out of everything. One big difference between the two girls is that while Enright has always loved horses and dreams of working with them for a career, Brown was just introduced to owning a horse last year when she won a filly at the Wayne County Fair from a memorial award from Bob Swartzlander. “I had never been on a horse before then,” said Brown.

Brown really enjoys outdoor activities and is a youth shooter at Marshall’s Archery in Numa, a member of the Appanoose County Gun Club, plays basketball, softball and volleyball along with cheerleading and track at Seymour. She is also very active in 4-H and FFA where she shows pigs, calves, sheep and horses.

“This has been a great learning experience and one thing that I have learned is to always expect the unexpected,” said Brown.

It has been just short of 100 days and the girls and their families will be making the long trip south in a matter of days to compete in hopes of making the finals and winning some of the cash prize.

They will be doing turns, a walk behind, over the bridge, back end trailer load, trotting through cones, trotting over poles and a freestyle competiton which will include a routine that has been made up to music that the girls have chosen.

If they advance to the finals they will compete in another routine with music.

Some of the titles the girls have chosen include “Thunderstruck”, “The Thunder Rolls”, “My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys”, the sound effect of a Ford Mustang car peeling out, “She’s Country”, “Her Strut”, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” and “My Wish”.