By Sharon St Joan

To read part one first, click here. 

In his Reno Gazette article, Craig Downer makes the case that the wild horse is truly a wild, native species. As is widely acknowledged by the scientific community, the modern horse originated in North America around two million years ago. The ancestors of the horse, in North America, go back much farther than that. At least until ten to twelve thousand years ago – horses roamed the lands where they are found today in North America. As Craig Downer points out, “considerable evidence indicates that horses never totally died out, although they diminished, along with many other species at the close of the last Ice Age.” Many disbursed, going across the Bering Strait to Asia and from there they spread out across the world.

He writes, “Horses are not mere machines; they are living beings who have arisen out…