i’ve had 18 or 20 and a lot of them were.
So some of these mustang herds have a following? Before they’re gathered? Like… they’re photographed and followed on social media? By fan girls? And given names?
Seriously, I had no idea!
omg… those little girls are SERIOUS wild-horse fans. A whole lot of them are quite naturally opposed to the roundups (‘gathers’). And donate their dollars and dimes to Sanctuaries to outbid us ‘greedy’ private owners. Now, not all sanctuaries are bad, a few of them have large free ranges…almost as good as the Long Term Holding facilities (paid for by BLM -tax dollars). But some are just a disjointed series of corrals. I have hundreds of acres, some of my compadres in the mustang-world do as well…though most of those women buy/train/sell. me…i just keep them here and when animals die of old age complexities or get injured and have to be put down, i replace them. Right now i have room for 8 mustangs.
Anyhow…back to the Sanctuaries… they promote the fact they are bidding HARD for “Picasso” or someone else widely photographed (and these horses have posters/framed pics/plastic replicas ala Breyer etc) and rake in the bucks to keep them out of the hands of people like me. lol. I am happy when the horses land in real Sanctuaries, but i do think that when a sanctuary spends 7 or 8k on a famous horse it is that much less money for hay and support or for more. BUT!!! Promotion is not nothing! If a big famous horse like Picasso, photo’d in his new safe, free, home brings in more positive notoriety and more $$ than all-is-good, yes?
The good ones are those who will purchase the SAs to keep them from the hands of the meat buyers. And they will also take the blind or broken but can still graze and take care of themselves…and range them. Those horses don’t make it into the auctions btw… they are place prior.
Anyhoooo… Quite a few of the HMAs have their own club. THese people (90% women) do very useful things besides photographing/data collecting…they dart the mares with birth control (temporary at this point) they cart water and fill tanks…but mostly they document. Some of the HMA clubs are verrrrrry active and have worked for all they’re worth to keep the horses wild and on the range. (primarily by darting mares) Sand Wash Basin is one of those groups. So…about 50 or so of the SWB geldings in this auction are well-documented. Photographed from foal to adult. It is know whether they were band stallions or mostly-bachelors with no mares.
Competition to purchase some of these older stallions will be serious! I’m not into them for any reason other than my personal aesthetic and now, my current desire to train dressage, so i’m looking for a body-type and movement. And, thankfully, what i want isn’t the same thing as what is motivating all of them. I DO have a few friends though that are interested in colorful horses, and those are all-over sought. By private and by sanctuary supporters.
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Wow, how the mustang world has evolved! Thanks for all that info. Utterly fascinating peek into the power of social media with regards to “fundraising.” Can definitely see the good and bad as you presented.
The real and only bad is of course when these wild critters land in incapable hands. And that happens quite often. BLM has 50 thousand horses to get rid of…they are not THAT picky! Certain facility parameters, but as for the human component…not really much they can do is there? Any one can call themselves anything and no one is actually vetted. So, those horses end up virtually neglected in a backyard shed and corral for 10 years and probably eventually go down the long slow spiral toward Mexican or Canadian butcheryards.
Also, there isn’t really much to keep people from purchasing, for a mere 125, the older and well-fed horses out of holding and going straight to butchers.
So, i look at these older fat horses and in the back of my mind, i think …oh no! It is all very sad.
It’s a cold, cruel world…and one can only do what one can. Me, i have a lot of room, but i do want a horse to a) be beautiful to my eye and b) be trainable/rideable (though i hold out the inevitablilty that some of them will be just to wild0n the inside, i have at least two, perhaps 3 or 4 that i haven’t given up on yet- like that) I’m sure someday i’ll be too old and change my ways and buy/adopt the leftovers or the big old heavy ones.
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Sadly, yes, I have seen this both in Calif. and out here in AZ.
It was quite a few years ago, but when I was still in SoCal I was assigned to write a feature article on BLM mustang adoptions. I went with a photographer to a large adoption event (my first one) and when I started doing interviews I was rather shocked at how many people I encountered who either: A) had some kind of horsey background yet absolutely no concept of what they were getting themselves into, or B) were there to “get a horse” simply because of the low adoption fee.
So of course I had to ask the guy overseeing the whole event why there wasn’t more of an evaluation or screening of potential adoptees before allowing them to take a feral horse. His response was along the lines of, “This is America. Anyone can have a kid, right? Well, if you’ve got a corral with the right dimensions, and the adoption fee, you can have a mustang.”
Fortunately, it sounds like over time things have changed for the better, at least to some degree. Thank you for providing a home for some of these horses. They are among the lucky ones, for sure!
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I think those that don’t get adopted nor purchased and land in Long Term Holding are the winners. Though they are there because they’ve been picked over several times … So, it’s a land of poor conformation, sorrels and bays and already-whited0ut grays. Not many paints or roans or gruellas or bucksins make it past one or two sales cycles. (ie they’re bid on quickly)
So many of these mustangs are little. So many of the adopters are big. I can’t …just really can’t pay attention to the adopted from such-n-such HMA groups…i get too sad too often. The ineptitude is also rather demoralizing… There are just too many mustangs…that’s the problem. And too many ranchers competing for the grassland. If the mustangs were allowed on the same amount of rangeland as ranchers are it would be different. I fall pretty much in line with the following article as far as mustangs vs cattle
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Been watching this thread. Some lovely horses at the BLM auction.
My Highland is from a feral herd - captured when he was 8-ish- so I often watch the mustang threads on this forum. He’s a quirky character, still a little wild in some ways. Quite a few ponies from his feral herd have not been amenable backing, but he’s usually amenable towards most aspects of domestic horse life. Up to a point. He thinks fly masks and rugs are a waste of time. Not wild about bits, either, but he goes well in a hackamore.
Facebook’s algorithms have decided that I am interested in these mustang fangirls, and I get quite a few posts from photographers who have been documenting them. I sometimes click and go down the rabbit hole.
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i wanna see a pic of him!
The Dallas herd? I’ve ridden a fair few of them and our local riding school have several.
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I can’t play this round. We have the facilities, but not enough time to train before winter. Plus, the pickup sites are too far away.
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Yeah, I think more of the ones rounded up in 2011 went on to be successful riding ponies. Many were a lot younger.
My horse was captured in 2018, along with 17 others. Of those, 11 ended up going back to Dallas (they could not find buyers for 10, while the 11th was one of the old band stallions who was not happy being a domestic horse, so he was reunited with his wives). Only my horse and one other out of those remaining seven are ridden. The others were pretty wild, and they are pretty much lawn ornaments.
14 were rounded up this past spring and ended up being spread amongst the UK bin end dealer network. Not a good situation. We tracked some of them down, and my friend rescued one from an auction. He’d been starved and beaten.
Once you added the trauma of multiple round-ups, they became trickier and more wary of humans. I wonder if mustangs go through that.
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nice!!! i’ll be bidding on a young roan this time. I think it’s one of my favorite horse colors…oh who am i kidding! EVERY horse color is my favorite LOL.
Love your guys hooves and sturdy legs and short tidy pasterns. Built to last!!
i ride mine in a bitless bridle …but am working on one of them in a full-cheek snaffle…we’re almost there
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Added a second photo that shows off his nice dappled a bit more. Though he is a lot fluffier right now.
He takes a bit more creativity, sometimes, than my domestic four year old.
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I love his dapples!
With those dapples, he looks like he belongs on a merry-go-round. He is very handsome and the kind of horse I like to ride up here on the mountain trails.
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Agreed, I board so wasn’t set up to take on a wild one. Plus you just don’t know their personality or quirks until you start working with them. Getting one that was TIP trained was awesome, her trainer did a great job, and it enabled me to get a mustang when otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to.
We’re riding now and doing our first dressage lesson in a couple of weeks. She’s the best and the easiest horse I’ve ever trained. I appreciated knowing that I was getting one with a really solid, curious brain ahead of time 
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TIP training is such a wonderful program isn’t it?! It’s so great the there is an entire network setUp to home these fabulous horses. There’s something for everyone.
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It really is!! It’s such a great way to get more of them in good homes.
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They’re seriously underrated aren’t they?! I’ve never felt more safe on a horse (or mule) than how i feel on a mustang. So many things about them are subtly different. For example, i left Steve’s saddle and bridle on the corral gate where he and another mustang-in-training (Ajax) live and this morning, it was untouched. My domestics would have destroyed it! With mustangs, it’s like, once they buy-in to domesticity, they’re all-in.
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