Get To Know Your Host!

This will be Episode 1, Get To Know Your Host! Where I run through the questions that I ask my guests and answer them myself so you as my listeners can get to know me before we start on this Podcast journey! 

Link to my YouTube Video of getting ready for Whiskey: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/au5SH_BDm9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZheM77H-Y8

Link to my YouTube Video of Whiskey Arriving: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pdW285X1qUY

If you would like to reach out to me with questions or if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, you may contact me at:

 jmanes.equine@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome to the Michigan Mustang Podcast. I am your host, Jillian Main, coming to you from Union Michigan. This will be episode number one. Instead of interviewing someone, this one will be called Get to Know Your Host. So I will run through my questions that I have for my guests and I will answer them. That way you guys can get to know me a little bit before we start this journey of a podcast. So, do I remember the first time I heard about Mustangs? Um, not necessarily. I come from the generation that grew up with Spirit Stalin of the Cimarron. So I would say he was probably our first introduction to Mustangs. I know I went to go see Spirit in theaters, and that was the first movie I ever went to see in theaters. When did you get your first Mustang? I got my first Mustang February 28th, 2026. So I got him the last day of February this year. What made me want to get a Mustang? Well, I had an opportunity to buy a really well-bred quarter horse. However, she was out of my price range, and I couldn't quite afford to just go get cash and buy her. So instead, I said, screw it, I'll get a baby I can't afford. I bought a yearling Mustang. I got whiskey from Jessica Walther with Whispering Oaks Horsemanship. So she was kind of the go-between to actually get him. So she had already bought him from the National Forestry Service, and I bought him from her. What did I do to prepare for my Mustang coming home? So I will link my YouTube video. I made a YouTube video on this, and I will put that down below. First things first, you have to have the correct fencing. So since I had a yearling, I just had to buy five-foot corral panels. So we bought those from Tractor Supply, just the regular cheap corral panels, and we bought a six-foot gate to go with it. And we had a smaller three-sided shed that can be picked up and moved with like a skid loader at the farm. So he was in like an eight by ten three-sided shed. I had a water tank ready for him, uh smaller tank. It was probably between 50 and 80 gallons, so it wasn't the big 100-gallon tank. The problem I ran into with that one was it froze regularly because it was still cold in February and early March. So I bought used smart pack bucket insulators off of Facebook Marketplace since I didn't know they would if they would work or not. And they they do work if you start them off with warm water. So that's what I did every day was I took five gallons of warm water from my house out to the barn every morning before work, refilled those five-gallon buckets with the bucket insulators on them, and I hung those, I hung two five-gallon buckets with bucket insulators inside his three-sided shed. I also had it was a mineral block holder, but it was like for goats, so it it had two compartments to it that were separate, and I put loose equine minerals in one side and I put loose white plain table salt in the other side. And the other thing I had for him was soaked alfalfa pellets. I had those ready in his shed waiting for him when he got unloaded, so that way he he could just investigate and if he wanted to try him cool, if not that was cool too. I also had hay ready for him. I put hay not only in a hay net, but then I also spread it loose on the ground as well. I did put shavings down inside his three-sided shed since it was like stall-sized, because it was cold and what sounds better to a horse person than nice fresh shavings. And he did roll in them eventually. I don't know if he did it within the first 48 hours, but he did eventually roll in the shavings. Oh, I had a jolly ball out for him as well, which he did play with. He did like his alfalfa pellets, so that is something that I gave him every morning. I started giving them to him in a feed pan because he didn't quite care for the he liked the alfalfa pellets, but he didn't like that they were hanging in his shed in a like a small eight quart flatback bucket, and he didn't like putting his nose in there, which is fair. So once I started putting them in a feed pan out in the middle of his pen, he tore those up and would eat them immediately. So that's where I started feeding him was in a pan in the middle of his pen. And then I started him on a cup of tribute essential K, a cup of tribute growth, since he's a yearling, a cup of tribute constant comfort, just to get him started on grain, and I would mix those in his alfalfa pellets. I'd say that was about 48 hours into having him, and I would feed him every day, twice a day. So I'd go out and feed him before work at 4 30 in the morning, and I would go out and feed him again about 6 p.m. when I fed our other horses, because our our big horses only get fed once a day in the evenings. And then I would go see him right after work as well and do a small training session right after I got out of work about 2 o'clock. What HMA is your Mustang from? So Whiskey is from the Murderous Creek HMA in Oregon. However, he was born in a holding facility and he came from the Double Devil's Corral in California. My Mustang wasn't rounded up. He was born in holding, so that question is obsolete. I do not know who his mother is. I have reached out to the National Forestry Service to try and get information and see what her number was so I could look her up and try and find pictures of her, and I can't find her. How old was my Mustang when I adopted him? So he was born in April of 2025. The pictures that the National Forestry Service took of him were taken in August, and that's also when he was gelded. He was, I feel like he was gelded very early at four months. So the picture that I fell in love with and bought him off of was a four-month-old foal. And then Jessica Walther bought him when he went up for sale in December, and then I bought him off of her in between Christmas and New Year's. And then it took a long time for him to actually get here. I feel like we were waiting a really long time for the horses that were bought from the forestry service to ship out east. I I feel so bad for Jessica. I text her probably three times a week asking her, hey, have you heard anything? Hey, is there any news? I had a million and one questions for her. She was so patient with me. How many Mustangs do I currently own? I only own one. Whiskey is my only Mustang. He's my first and only. That is currently. I would love to get another one. I would honestly love to get one I can ride, because I won't be able to ride whiskey for a couple more years yet. I do have a paint gelding though, so he's older. He's between 17 and 20, and he's wonderful. He does all the things. Um he he's not a hundred percent sound though, so I can't jump with him, which I would love to jump again. But he does wonderful trail riding, he ponies whiskey for me. He's my go-to guy. He's super cool, he's trained very well, he's got all the buttons, he's a really nice horse. How many Mustangs have I owned over my lifetime? Obviously, just the one, just whiskey. He's my only Mustang at the moment. What experience did you have before getting your first Mustang? I did have horse experience. So I started off I probably started riding when I was five-ish. Um, my neighbors across the street had ponies. So they were an elderly couple, and they had horses before the five-acre law went into effect. So where we lived, you have to have five acres in order to have horses on your property. And they only had two acres. But they had lived there long enough that since they had horses before that law went into place, they could keep having horses as long as they had horses there at least four months out of the year. So since their kids had horses, their daughter would bring them one or two ponies every summer, and then I would get to play with their ponies like May through September. It was always summer break when school was out, so I was over there all day every day. If my mom couldn't find me, she knew where I was. I was across the street playing with the ponies. And these are big ponies. I'm talking like Welsh cob sized ponies, or quarter ponies, if that's a better description. These were probably 13.2 to 14.3 hand horses. They were large ponies. They had ponies across the street, and I got to take care of them every day through the summer for probably between ages five and like eleven until my elderly neighbors passed away and then couldn't have horses anymore. After that, my dad started leasing me horses to use in 4 H because we didn't have enough land to have a horse. So we would lease horses. The first year we did that, I had asked in the fall of 2008. So I signed up for 4-H at the tail end of 2008 and found a club to join, and then my first year of doing 4-H with horses would have been 2009, and then I did 4-H every year until I aged out in 2016. And I had two separate horses through those years. So I had a horse named Indy for the first two years, and then I had my paint mare shy for the last for the last part of 4-H. And I had Shy after 4-H as well. What disciplines do I ride? I do a little bit of everything. I love my English saddle, but I also love my Western saddle, and I have a Bob Marshall saddle that I am starting to like more and more every time I ride in it. Right now, we currently mostly do trail riding. Just because I don't have a ton of time to ride. If I rode every day, I would love to show, but I'm not gonna show unless I ride every day, or at least like four days a week. And I don't have that kind of commitment to ride that many days a week in order to show. But mostly all I do is the open shows. I love doing showmanship, that is one of my favorite things to do. I like doing Western Pleasure, I like doing Western horsemanship, I like the English equitation and the English pleasure. So, like your normal 4-8 shows and your open shows. I also love eventing. I haven't gotten into it real big. I did Grasshopper with my Arabian in 2024, but I would love to do that again. That's honestly my goal for whiskey once he is old enough to jump, which is a long time from now, is to go out and do eventing again because I would love to get into it again. And I don't have big goals. I'm totally happy doing starter and beginner novice. I don't feel the need to go up to training or prelim. I just want to go out and have fun. And going out and jumping cross country is super fun. Do I compete with my Mustang? Yes, I do currently compete with my Mustang. I am showing at all of the Michigan Mustang series horse shows. All I can do with whiskey is the in-hand right now. So we do in hand showmanship, we do in hand handling and maneuvers, and we do in hand trail. Because I have a yearling and that's all we can do. Well, we could do Liberty, but I did Liberty with my Arabian, and that takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Is your Mustang registered with any associations? Yes, he is registered with N-A-M-A-R, which is the North American Mustang Association and Registry. His registered name is Sunshine and Whiskey, and I did name him after the Frankie Ballard song. I don't I normally listen to podcasts all day long, and for some reason I was listening to music instead of podcasts, and that song came on, and I thought that's his name. That is what I'm going to name him. I struggled to pick a name for him to start off with, because I originally wanted to call him Dante. He's not a Dante. Once he got here, he was not a Dante. And I'm so glad my husband talked me out of buying nameplates and such for halters because he's not a Dante. But whiskey fits him pretty well, and he's kind of the color of a whiskey barrel. Do you see the Mustang industry growing inside the horse industry in the next five years? I do. Honestly, just because Mustangs are cheap, and that might sound bad, but the way horse prices currently are, I feel like Mustangs are a good alternative to paying, you know, $7,000 for a horse that used to be $1,200. And I feel like there's a lot of scams out right now, and I feel like there's a lot of people who just aren't honest. That you I have run into a ton of people who have bought horses that have been told that they were safe and friendly and didn't have any issues, and they get them home and then they're crazy and they buck and they're dangerous. Then these people who, you know, wanted a good horse are now losing confidence and don't want horses anymore. And I'm not talking like a $1,500 horse, I'm talking like people spent $7,500 on a horse they thought was trained and reliable and they're not. What changes would you like to see happen in the Mustang industry over the next five years? I really hope the Mustang industry grows in the next five years, because over the next five years, Whiskey will be started under saddle and he will be a fantastic riding horse. I am so looking forward to showing him, especially under saddle. I think he's gonna be so much fun. So I really hope the Michigan Mustang series in Michigan gets bigger, and I hope more people come and show their Mustangs because I think it'd be a blast to show whiskey under saddle at the Michigan Mustang series every year. What do you do for a living in order to afford your horse habit? I work in custom metal fabrication and I am a robotic welding operator and programmer. What does the Michigan Mustang community mean to you? I love the Michigan Mustang community. I love that Michigan is a hotspot for Mustangs. I think this is the coolest thing that there's so many Mustangs right here in Michigan, and there's so many people that are willing to help you and you can bounce ideas off of them or you can call them and say, Hey, can you just come watch me and make sure I'm doing everything right? It it was so welcoming and everybody is so nice and everybody is so they want you to be successful and I can't tell you how friendly everyone is. I mean you go up to the Michigan Mustang series and when you when you pull in the drive with your horse trailer, you know, you have people who are asking you if they can fill your water buckets for you while you unload or if there's anything they can do to help you while you're putting your horse trailer away. Like people are so nice, and it's just awesome. You know, I love that everybody will just bend over backwards to help you, or if you forget something, everybody seems like, oh, I've got an extra in my horse trailer, let's see if it'll fit your horse. You know, it's just so friendly and so welcoming, and it's just a great environment and a great atmosphere, and I couldn't have asked for a better a better start in the Mustangs. What advice do you have for someone wanting to get their first Mustang? Do your homework and ask questions. Don't be scared to reach out to people and ask for help. There's so many people who are they want you to get a Mustang. You know, ever all these people with Mustangs, they want Mustangs to get out of holding. So there's everybody will happily help you and they want you to be successful with your Mustang. So just reach out for help. If you run into problems, reach out and ask questions. Everybody is so welcoming in this community. What is an equine best practices that you do in your barn or with your horses? I don't know that it's a best practices, but I am extremely methodical and I do everything the same way every day. So that makes it easy to notice if I miss something, you know, if something's out of the ordinary, because it's if I do everything the same way every day, if there's something off, I can tell. So I guess it would just be to string extremely methodical and meticulous. You know, I I take care of my horses very well. I'm very observant. I can tell if something's off, I can see if something's different, I know if something is different than it was the day before. What is a horse-related bucket list item of yours? I would love to do another eventing show. I let's say let's do a beginner novice eventing horse trials. I think it would be a blast to do beginner novice horse trials. What is your favorite color of horse? I am a sucker for a bae. I'm especially a sucker for a bae with four white socks and any kind of facial markings. There is nothing flashier and prettier in my opinion than a bay horse with white markings. What differences have you noticed between wild and domesticated horses? So I've only had the one wild horse, and he is just a yearling, but he is so smart. I mean he picks up on stuff just so easily and so fast. He is so cool. And I think that's gotta be the biggest difference is just how how fast he picks up on things. He's just so sensitive to what you're asking of him, and I I really look forward to working with him as I start him under saddle because he is just so cool. I I seriously love this Mustang so much. I mean he's he's he's the light of my day. Is there a Mustang topic you'd like to hear covered on a future podcast episode? Um nothing real specific. I am looking forward to interviewing people from all over Michigan and people local to Michigan. I'm looking forward to hearing people's experiences with more Mustangs. Do I prefer mares or geldings? I would say I prefer geldings. I don't have anything against mares, but I haven't had mares in a while, and I absolutely love the geldings I currently have. So I think I would say geldings. Well, thank you for listening to episode one, get to know your host of the Michigan Mustang Podcast. I am your host, Gillian Maines, and I will see you on future episodes. Thanks for listening.