Over time, the party of mostly young and inexperienced soldiers, including Mendoza, had gotten lost and ended up in the desert of what is now modern-day Arizona. Short on water and supplies, the main focus of the party soon became finding a source to replenish its water casks. However, it was during this search that the entire party was caught up in a massive and violent sandstorm that lasted several days. When the storm finally subsided, all of the men and several horses had perished, having been buried alive under sand that drifted like snow. Mendoza’s gray stallion, with a strikingly long mane and tail—white on the top, black on the bottom—along with a smaller black stallion and five mares, all of Andalusion or Barb descent, swam out of the sand and began wandering in search of food and water.

The small group eventually ended up in the area that is now Flagstaff, Arizona, and although the soil in the area consisted mainly of cinder from the final explosion of an ancient volcano, the band began to thrive on the relative abundance of good grass and water it found there. Over the years, descendants of that band branched out all over the west and southwest, some being captured and domesticated by the indigenous people that lived in the area, others escaping into remote areas and surviving on meager forage and water.

This band of seventeen in the middle of Nevada, three days into a five-day journey in search of better grazing, was one of those bands directly descended from Mendoza’s gray stallion and one of those Spanish mares from all those years ago. Many of the herd still carried the traits of their early ancestors—hard, black feet, thick-boned legs, thick manes that split evenly down the middle of the neck, wide foreheads, intelligent and deep eyes, unmatched stamina, and lightning quick reflexes.

The herd had been on the move since before dawn that morning, and it was mid afternoon before the bay mare brought the band to a halt on the top of a mesa where there was enough dry, brown grass for the horses to eat before they moved on. A thunderstorm rumbled in the distance, but it wouldn’t be bringing any moisture that day. No sooner had the herd stopped than all of the horses, including the nine youngsters of various ages, dropped their heads and began grazing, except the big gray stallion that had been walking along behind the rest of the herd. The stallion had been on alert for the last two hours, hearing and smelling something out of the ordinary, but unable to see anything. He stood at the rim of the mesa, head high and muscles tight, looking out across the high desert from which they had just come but still unable to identify anything that would bring his herd into danger.

The old bay mare had taken on the role of herd leader two years earlier when her mother, the previous herd leader, simply disappeared one night during a freak blizzard. The herd wandered with little or no direction for nearly two months before the bay mare with the star on her forehead stepped in and—with the band on the verge of perishing from thirst—led them to water. From that point forward, the herd willingly followed her wherever she went.