Free-Ranging, Feral, and Fully Wild: What Observing Horses in the Wild Can Tell Us About Ourselves and the Horses We Keep

• Main Author: Letteri, Abbi
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DOCS@RWU 2023
• Subjects: History; New Zealand; Iceland
• Online Access: https://docs.rwu.edu/equinehistory-conference/2023/friday/1

In June and July of 2023, I will travel to the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Iceland and Mongolia, with the express purpose of encountering free-ranging, feral and fully wild horses. I will study and observe several unique populations including the free-ranging ponies of the Isle of Eriskay, the managed Takhi herd in the Scottish Highlands and the fully wild Takhi of The Great Gobi B. I’ll also encounter the horses of Iceland in their vast, fenceless summer pastures and reflect back on my time spent in 2022 with feral horses just mustered off the ranges of New Zealand as they encountered humans for the first time. I propose a live performance of prose and visual imagery created during my journey, in which I will reflect on the relative freedoms of horses who are fully wild, and of those who live without restrictions but have been domesticated to some purpose. I’ll consider the meaning of wild to the people who care for these horses, and what the nature of wild might suggest in the context of our relationships with the domestic horses in our care.