There are nearly 5,000 wild horses grazing throughout Oregon. But according to the Bureau of Land Management, the state can only sustainably provide for just over 2,600 horses on public lands.
To help manage herd populations, the agency works to find some wild horses new homes, and it’s people like Kimber Teatro who help turn these wild mustangs into domesticated horses.
Teatro has been a participant in the Mustang Adoption Challenge since 2019, where wild horse trainers are given more than 100 days to work with an animal and get them ready for adoption.
During most of the year, Teatro can actually be found working as a tattoo artist in Portland, but during the summer, she takes a different tack, spending her days working with these wild horses.
This year she will be showing her horse Finn at the competition, which takes place at the end of August in Albany. She joins us to share more about what it’s been like working with wild horses and why it’s so meaningful to her.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For nine months out of the year, you can find Kimber Teatro in a tattoo parlor in Portland – but her summers could not be more different. She spends them taking completely wild mustangs and getting them ready to be adopted. She is now on her sixth horse through a Yamhill-based nonprofit called Teens and Oregon Mustangs, and she joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.
Kimber Teatro: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Miller: When did you start riding horses?
Teatro: I started riding horses when I was about 10 years old, and then just continued and became a complete horse girl. I fell in love with it.
Miller: What did you like about it? Or what did you love about it, I guess?
Teatro: Just the connection with this animal. I’m such a short girl, so being able to ride these giant horses is just so magical to me.
Miller: Did you stop at a certain point?
Teatro: I did when I was about 16 because I knew that I wanted to start tattooing, so I moved to the city, started tattooing and wasn’t able to get out to the country to have access to the horses.
Miller: Did you miss it?
Teatro: I did. Every day, yeah.
Miller: Literally every day?
Teatro: Every day, like once a horse girl, always a horse girl. And finally, once I turned 26 and I got my first car, I drove out to the barn. That was the first thing that I did. I just showed up and they welcomed me back with open arms, and been there ever since.
Miller: Same barn you’d been to before?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: So you showed up and you said, can I ride a horse? Can I just be around horses?
Teatro: Yes, yeah. So Erica FitzGerald, the founder of Teens and Oregon Mustangs, was my mentor and a second mom to me. So when I showed up at the barn, she was so excited to see me and put me on a horse. And once again, I’ve been there ever since.
Miller: When you were riding horses as a kid or as a teenager, they were all domesticated already?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: Did you have any experience at that point with mustangs?
Teatro: No, no, I didn’t until 2020, during COVID. Because of the shutdown, I wasn’t able to tattoo. Then I was kind of pushed into it and fell in love with the process.
Miller: Do you remember the first time you were around a wild mustang?
Teatro: Yes, very clearly.
Miller: Where were you and what was it like?
Teatro: So I was in Yamhill. I had gotten my very first horse. It was so magical because this thing is completely feral. They’re touched slightly throughout the Bureau of Land Management just to like have their vaccines, get branded and have their feet done. So looking into the eyes of this like thing that’s looking at you, they’re like, who are you? What are you doing with me?
It was just incredible, like that heart racing. And still, every year, once it starts over, I feel the same feeling.
Miller: What was the name of that first horse?
Teatro: Dolly.
Miller: What was Dolly like?
Teatro: She was the perfect first horse for me, first wild horse.
Miller: They chose one that they thought might be a little bit easier – maybe not quite the right word – for somebody who’d never done this before?
Teatro: Well, it started just kind of as a gamble, really. They just really gave this horse to me and how they react in the corrals is a lot different, versus one starting in the stall and you get to see them for the first time. So you don’t really know. They might be quiet when you first see them and then once you get them, they could be a little crazy. She was a little reactive. But still very calm, very good, taught me so much, letting me dip my toes into the water of training the horses.
Miller: Where do you start with a completely wild horse?
Teatro: Really just spending time with them. You kind of go in the stall, and it’s called pressure and release. So you kind of stick your hand out and you lower yourself down to seem non-threatening. And then they’ll look at you and then you take your hand away. You keep building up that pressure until you can finally start touching them.
Miller: But you’re in the stable at this point?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: I mean, even that seems potentially really scary.
Teatro: It can be. With horses, they’re just like big dogs, is what I always say. So you really learn to read their body language. You can kind of see if they put their ears back, then that means they’re probably pretty angry, so you can learn when to step away and when to put pressure. It can be a little scary and it is a little nerve-wracking, but then also it’s kind of like that adrenaline junkie thing where you’re really excited about it.
Miller: OK, so the first step is just showing your hand. I mean, that even that sounds like approaching a dog you don’t know. Here’s my hand. Don’t bite it. I’m not going to hurt you. How long was it with Dolly before you could, say, put a saddle on her or actually ride her?
Teatro: It was probably about two months. Really, with these horses, it’s called groundwork. It’s the most important thing to where they’re safe to handle on the ground. And you don’t want to rush these horses into anything because then they just break down. So part of my job in training these horses is to make them a good citizen that’s going to be a safe horse for the next person to take them. It’s just two months working on the ground, teaching them the steps, then you put the saddle on and then just building blocks A, B, C. Then you get on, you keep building and then you’re riding.
Miller: At the end of that first summer, there’s an auction?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: What was your first auction like? So you’d spent all this time … You were there every single day?
Teatro: Every single day, driving from Portland to Yamhill.
Miller: And you really got to know and love Dolly?
Teatro: Oh yeah, absolutely. To this day, I still cry every time. I had so many tears. Luckily, a woman, Maria Rauta is her name, she’s on the Board of Teens. She bought Dolly. So there’s the auction going on and it’s kind of a whirlwind. I’m crying and not really listening. Then I come out, she walks up and she has her bidder number, and I go, “It was you!” So I still get to see Dolly every day.
Miller: Does she remember you?
Teatro: I think so. She likes me, until I have to ride her and she’s like, you’re gonna make me do work. Uh.
Miller: You’re not sure that she remembers you?
Teatro: I mean, I’m sure that she does, right? Because horses will see you – once again, just like dogs – they remember you. But she’s kind of like, oh, you’re not my person. So she’s like, but I remember that you make me work hard.
Miller: So it seems like every time this is hard. I mean, you said you cry every time, so it hasn’t gotten easier. Like the fourth time your heart wasn’t hardened, you didn’t say, in June, “all right, I’m not going to fall in love with you because I’m gonna have to say goodbye to you in August.” You can’t do that?
Teatro: I can’t do it. I always tell myself and I build myself up. I’m like, “OK, well, you’re going to get rid of this horse. It’s going to get a forever home and you’re going to love it.” But every time, still, I’m just like babbling. But I love the process.
Miller: I want to hear more about the process. Do people use the word “breaking” as in breaking horses? I haven’t seen that so much in the prep for this interview.
Teatro: So, it’s kind of like an old cowboy term, you’re breaking a horse, right? But we like to use the term “gentling,” because we don’t want to break the horse. We don’t want to break their spirits. So we are just gentling them, because they’ve never had the experience of working with people before.
Miller: How much do you ever know about the lives of these horses before the Bureau of Land Management rounded them up and they ended up in Yamhill?
Teatro: So some of them, yes, there are a lot of photographers that go out, and they photograph and they’ll give some of these horses, they’re called range names. So they can track, this horse was born from these two horses and watch them grow up, but there’s a lot of horses that are in the backcountry and essentially impossible to get to. So some of them, yeah, you can know their lineage, where they’re from and how old they are.
Miller: And others are just sort of wild mysteries.
Teatro: Yeah, yeah, where they’re just out in the backcountry. You can’t really bring your truck out there and they’re just kind of hanging out.
Miller: Can you give us a sense for the numbers? I mean, how many wild mustangs are there in Oregon right now?
Teatro: From March of 2025, the Bureau of Land Management sensed that there’s about 4,900, a little bit over, and then the manageable number should be 2,700.
Miller: So almost twice as many horses on the land as the BLM says the land can take right now?
Teatro: Yeah, essentially, because in Eastern Oregon, where most of the herds are, there’s really not a lot of natural predators, but it’s also the desert, so there’s not a lot for them to eat. So unfortunately, they overpopulate themselves, can start starving and there’s not a lot of water sources. So that’s where the Bureau of Land Management comes in to help manage those numbers.
Miller: Can you tell us about the horse you’re training this year?
Teatro: Yes, absolutely. His name is Finn. He is a 6-year-old gelding from the South Steens herd and he is so handsome. We like to call him Mr. Hollywood. [Laughs]
Miller: What makes him handsome?
Teatro: It’s called a blue roan. So he’s like black legs, a brown face, a long, beautiful black mane and tail. He’s just a good looking horse for a mustang, which is, for lack of a better term, the mutt of the horse world.
Miller: So if Dolly was a good horse to start this with, what has Finn been like in terms of training?
Teatro: He’s been a little challenging because he was a stallion for five years of his life. So he’s a little bit more reactive. And then this year I’ve also faced a back injury, so that’s set the training back a little bit, but I do love a challenge. So it teaches me so much more. We learn for every horse that we have. So now I’m learning new steps on how to deal with these things.
Miller: What’s he taught you?
Teatro: To be patient, be more patient. And with these horses, you can’t make them go quicker than they want to, essentially. So a lot of the time it’s not about us, it’s about the horses. So we really have to take a step back and be like, “OK, what will work for you?” So it’s kind of like, “OK, you’re not ready for this. Let’s go back to A and B before we introduce C.”
Miller: The auction is at the end of August, right, the end of this month?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: So that’s just three weeks or so.
Teatro: Uh … yes. [Laughs]
Miller: Oh, so when you made that sweet, sad sound just now, people couldn’t see your face. That was, I assume, because it means you’re going to have to say goodbye to him in three weeks.
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: Is he ready right now?
Teatro: Yes, he will be. So there’s a lot of different portions. We are in the in-hand division. So we go through the competition just in-hand. I won’t be riding him, but he has had such a solid foundation that he is ready for the next step, for somebody to take him, put a saddle on, get riding. And he’ll be a good horse, but just some of them aren’t 100-day horses.
Miller: In other words, some of them can’t be fully ridable in only 100 days?
Teatro: Yes, 100%.
Miller: What do you think his or other wild horses that are tamed through this program … what do they end up doing?
Teatro: So a lot of them … I mean, there’s so much. Mustangs are such versatile horses. A lot of them end up being trail horses, lesson horses for schooling and that kind of stuff. In New York, the cops that ride horses, a lot of them will use mustangs. So they can get into eventing, show jumping, ranching, literally whatever you want.
Miller: And the ones who are trained in Yamhill, they could end up anywhere in the country, or do they mainly stay in the Northwest?
Teatro: It’s all over the country. They have buyers from as far as Germany, Colorado, New York – people love these horses.
Miller: So we’ve been focusing a lot, exclusively so far, on the wild horse training part of your life. But I’m curious if or how that intersects with what you do for the rest of the nine months of your life, which is being a tattoo artist. Is there a connection?
Teatro: I mean, not really. They’re two totally separate worlds and it’s kind of like this weird anomaly. But I get the best of both worlds to where I get to be so artistic, and then spend my winters loving my craft, and then being able to take the summers to love my other craft: working with horses.
Miller: Do you enjoy being a tattoo artist more because you have this time away from it?
Teatro: I think so. It lets me take a step back and come back in a more creative form, because I’m still tattooing throughout the summers, but it’s a lot more condensed towards one appointment a day versus being at the shop from 11 to 7.
Miller: Do you have any tattoos of the horses that you have tamed?
Teatro: No, not yet. I still have to think of a good one. I do have a tattoo from my coworker Sarah Hall. There’s a horse pulling a cowboy and he has like his legs up being dragged through the dirt, so that’s essentially my experience, being dragged through the dirt, eating a lot of dirt throughout the summers. [Laughs]
Miller: Do you get paid for the work you’re doing right now to tame these horses?
Teatro: No.
Miller: This is purely volunteer work?
Teatro: Yes.
Miller: So how do you make that work? You’re three months without working.
Teatro: I save all my money in the winters. I pinch pennies and …
Miller: Wow, so I mean, this is truly a labor of love.
Teatro: Absolutely, 100%.
Miller: Wow. So often we’ve talked in the past about the various efforts to control the populations of wild horses in Oregon. What do you think is lost in those conversations or do you think Oregonians should be paying more attention about these horses that are roaming free right now in huge swaths of Oregon?
Teatro: I think that there’s just miscommunication, because there are the people who support the gatherers and everything. Then there’s people who don’t necessarily and they want them to roam free. So, the wild horses have been federally-protected since 1971. So I think there’s just a conversation that’s not happening on what is best for the horses and not what feels good for us, necessarily. I’m not probably the best person to say what is the right decision and everything like that. But there is, truth be told, a problem and it has to be managed at some point, because we want the horses to live free and run free, but we want them to be healthy and live well.
Miller: How do you say goodbye to a horse?
Teatro: A lot of tears, giving them treats, a lot of love, a lot of pets. I’m very fortunate that all of the horses that I’ve trained, I’m still in contact with.
Miller: They haven’t been sent to Germany.
Teatro: No, no.
Miller: Your horses.
Teatro: No, not yet.
Miller: And hopefully Finn won’t either.
Teatro: Yeah, if I’m lucky, then I’ll still be able to see him. But all of the people who have bought my horses keep me updated, send me updates so I can see what they’re doing, that they’re being good horses and they’re loved so well.
Miller: Kimber, thanks so much.
Teatro: Yes, thank you so much for having me.
Miller: Kimber Teatro is a tattoo artist in Portland in the colder and wetter months of the year. In the summer, she trains wild horses that have been rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management.
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