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Elle Everheart and her mustang Alfie are competing in the Extreme Mustang Makeover, which culminates in a show in Lebanon, Tennessee on June 12. An experienced equestrian, Everheart spends time each day to develop trust with this wild animal. Daryl Law photo

All three of these horses and riders are getting set to compete in the Extreme Mustang Makeover event in June. They are, from left, Short Stop with Maggie Austin, Alfie with Elle Everheart and Tyra with Julia Everheart. Daryl Law photo

Decked out in her western wear, Elle Everheart stands with her gelding Alfie, left, and her mom’s mare Tyra, right. They plan to show these horses’ progress from “Wild to Mild” in the Extreme Mustang Makeover. Daryl Law photo

Elle Everheart and her mustang Alfie are competing in the Extreme Mustang Makeover, which culminates in a show in Lebanon, Tennessee on June 12. An experienced equestrian, Everheart spends time each day to develop trust with this wild animal. Daryl Law photo

Maggie Austin and her mustang Short Stop stand in front of the training ring at her Sugar Ridge Ranch, which is tucked away in the trees and dunes just off N.C. 12 in Frisco. Daryl Law photo

Elle Everheart and her mustang Alfie are competing in the Extreme Mustang Makeover, which culminates in a show in Lebanon, Tennessee on June 12. An experienced equestrian, Everheart spends time each day to develop trust with this wild animal. Daryl Law photo

What does it take to train a mustang horse to go from “Wild to Mild” in just six months? Frisco’s Elle Everheart plans to find out.

This winter, she’s taken on a one-year-old mustang to nurture, train and eventually show in mid-June in the Mustang Heritage Spectacular at the Kentucky Horse Park Alltech Arena in Lexington, Ky. The event attracts 2,000 to 3,000 spectators and awards prizes to the winners.

It’s all a part of the Mustang Heritage Foundation’s Extreme Mustang Makeover Challenge that allows people to showcase the trust trainers can build with an untouched mustang or burro, according to their website.

For Elle, a junior at Cape Hatteras Secondary School, she’s dreamed of such an amazing opportunity. Her gelding, Alfie, has a light brown coat and isn’t fully grown yet. She works with him every day after school.

Elle had the horse’s mane styled with braids this past Saturday morning and she finished up the training session early so she could go get ready for prom that night.

With help from her mom Julia and Sugar Ridge Ranch owner Maggie Austin, Elle traveled to Lebanon, Tenn. back on Dec. 12 to pick up Alfie, who was herded up in the North Hills region of Utah.

“We’re competing in the Extreme Mustang Makeover (EMM),” Elle said. “We’re in the East Coast competition.” The competition offers a cash payout to the winning trainers, with the total prize money often exceeding $40,000 in cash and prizes, according to the website.

With the competition’s slogan “Wild to Mild” in mind, Julia said the goal is to eventually turn Alfie into a domesticated horse. So far, in the first two months, Elle said Alfie has behaved well.

“He’s been pretty good, pretty chill, pretty mellow,” she said. “He’s only a year-and-half old.”

Elle and Alfie plan to compete in the youth “in-hand” division of the show. There are also adult in-hand and adult under-saddle divisions. For training, they use thin rope bridles so the horses can feel it better, she explained.

“We’ve been doing simple stuff like walking,” Elle said. There are also commands for “go to trailer, backing up, yield to hind quarters and ground time.”

Elle said they will go up against plenty of mustangs with seasoned trainers and it might be tough. But she added that her strategy includes staying with the basics and doing them well. Her mom Julia explained their goals further.

“They have to learn all the stuff you want a domesticated horse to do before riding them,” she said. Elle agreed.

“You have to get them acclimated,” Elle added.  They should be more like a pet than a “wild child,” she added.

Sometimes she must be firm and use “Alford” for emphasis. They’ve already taken Alfie to the Currituck County Rural Center for practice, Elle noted.

Bare spots on her horse’s coat reflect the rough and tumble nature of his previous wild existence in Utah where he was culled from a herd.

The United States Bureau of Land Management thins these herds, which it says are harmful to the environment. This EMM program helps these animals get rescued.

The federal Bureau of Land Management is responsible for managing the wild mustang and burro population across 26.9 million acres of public land, according to its website.

The USDA Forest Service is responsible for managing the nation’s wild horses and burros on National Forest System lands including Utah. The forest service provided all the mustangs for this year’s EMM challenge.

And the best part for Elle and Alfie? She gets to keep him for free! Adults who take on the rescues can purchase them for a fee of $750 each.

So, when Julia and Maggie drove Elle out to pick up Alfie in a truck and horse trailer, something changed somewhere along the way – their minds. The two adults decided to rescue mustangs, too!

“We saw how cute they were, and we wanted ours, too!” Julia said. “We went for one and came back with three!” These horses are on the small side and apparently all three were loaded up with no problem.

Maggie’s stables are set up to be rented by vacationing horse owners during the summer season, so her facilities were available for all three of them to use for boarding, training and building trust, which hasn’t come easy.

“They’re wild, wild!” Julia said. “The first day, Tyra jumped out of her stall – she’s wild! These are untamed wild animals – totally wild!”

So, these three Frisco residents are a third of the way along a six-month long training journey to transform their mustang horses from “Wild To Mild.”

Their progress will be judged in June. They are each competing in different events, so they won’t be meeting head-to-head, Maggie noted.

All three women were born and raised on Hatteras Island and they’ve each had plenty of saddle time working at the nearby Equine Adventurers facility that offers beach rides for summer visitors.

Maggie’s development of her property into a ranch has allowed her to sponsor the Everheart horses for the winter. She’s thrilled with Sugar Ridge Ranch and the adjacent rental properties known as the Sugarloaf Cabins.

“This is a dream come true for me,” she said. “I started at Equine Adventures when I was seven years old.”

The properties are neatly tucked away on the oceanside of N.C. 12 in a peaceful stand of trees with dunes and a big opening in the woods with a ring front and center. Summer visitors can rent a cabin and board their horses just a stone’s throw away.

Maggie has created a beautiful home for visiting horses. The six-stall barn, dual tack rooms and corals all appear new. A cattle gate across the driveway provides extra security for the animals.

The mustangs are mainly fed grain and alpha hay from Currituck, which is a long ride from Frisco.

“Having horses on the Outer Banks is not easy,” Julia noted. Especially wild mustangs.

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