Brad Horn/Nevada Appeal Inmate Chris Baker performs a back flip off Moonshine during a horse auction at Warm Springs Correctional Center in Carson City on Saturday. The inmates saddle-train the horses, which range in age from two to five years, for 120 days.
Joe Molnar tugs on the tail of a 1,200-pound horse and pats it on the stomach.
"If I go and pinch him here, he'll bite me."
Molnar pinches the horse on the side.
"He'll show his mouth," Molnar says, as horse turns its head toward him, "and come at you real slow."
Molnar smiles and musses the horse's mane. An announcer in the corral behind them calls out prices.
Three months ago, Molnar didn't know anything about horses. He was just one of 15 men who had signed up for a program at Warm Springs Correctional Center that gives inmates a chance to tame wild and stray horses rounded up in Nevada.
That's when Molnar met Joe Mustang and started working with the animal five days a week, eight hours a day - just trying to keep him calm in the beginning.
"He'd get a relaxed look in his eye, and I'd take the next step," Molnar said. "How much farther can I get? Is he going to kick me?"
Molnar said he had to learn how to judge the horse's expressions.
"When he's learning something, he does the Elvis thing with his lip."
Molnar did an impression of it.
Besides being nervous and excitable, the horse also used to be scared of water. Molnar said other inmates had squirted it, so he had to be gentle about giving it a bath or watering it.
He said the horse is completely comfortable with him. To prove it, Molnar snuck his hand over Joe Mustang's stomach.
He said he can pull on its tail even when it's "having a bad day."
The hardest thing, Molnar said, was teaching Joe Mustang to get in and out of the trailer.
"He wouldn't have nothing to do with the trailer loading," Molnar said.
Besides that, he also had trouble teaching the animal to lope. The horse needed to learn, though, because people don't want "a straight freight train running wild."
Chris Baker, another inmate, said his horse, Moonshine, bucked him onto a gate once. That's part of the reason he gave it the name.
"He was taking so long to catch that I thought he would have a little kick to him."
Mark Struble, spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management, which manages wild-horse populations in Nevada, said people can get cheap prices on horses tamed through the program. About 15 horses were sold Saturday during the auction at the prison.
He said it's good for inmates, too, because it assigns them responsibility.
Molnar, who is up for parole in August, said he's learned to ask, not order, the horse if he wants it to do something. If he does that, Joe Mustang will even dip his head into the bridle.
"He scared me in the beginning," Molnar said, "but now I'm scared for him. I hope he goes to a good home and doesn't get abused."
Before Joe Mustang was auctioned Saturday morning, Molnar hugged the horse around the neck.
"Good boy," he said.
• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.