Contest pairs horse trainers with wild mustangs

Graded on the level of trust
Quinn Martin, a judge at the Wyoming competition, said he graded the contestants on the level of trust between trainer and horse.

"You can tell that horse is with him by the look in the horse's eye and how hard he's trying," Martin said.

Supporters of the training competitions say the contests help those efforts by disproving the notion that mustangs can't be trained.

Competitor Bryan Mantle, who has trained wild mustangs for 10 years on his family's Wheatland ranch, said the initial training is key to successful adoptions.

"People seem to be able to get along with them easier, and the horses end up having a home and not just coming back like a troubled pet," he said.

Boosting adoptions would help ease the strain the horses are placing on the BLM's holding facilities and budget.

The BLM culled more than 7,500 horses from the range last year, adding to the roughly 30,000 wild horses and burros that are cared for in short-term corrals and long-term pastures. This year, the agency is spending about 70 percent of its $37 million wild horse budget on holding costs, said BLM spokesman Tom Gorey.

Because of the overcrowding, the BLM announced in June that it was studying the possibility of euthanizing older horses or allowing their unrestricted sale. Critics say that would result in the horses being exported to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.

All horses adopted at auction
At the end of the Wyoming competition, all 26 horses were adopted at auction for a total of $47,500. Excluding BLM adoption fees, trainers received 20 percent of their mustang's price and the rest went to the Mustang Heritage Foundation.

Rhonda Sedgwick Stearns, a Newcastle rancher, paid $4,300 to take home Pistol, a 3-year-old gelding that placed sixth. The price was a good deal, she said, considering the time and cost associated with the training a horse.

Stearns said she intends to use Pistol as a ranch horse, which means long days of riding upward of 30 miles, possibly in muddy and icy terrain. That's one of the reasons she wanted a mustang.

"If you're riding one of these horses, they ran along their mothers when they were babies and so they learn to watch where they're going and know where their feet are," Stearns said.

For his part, Main ended up adopting Victory, who finished seventh, for $1,050. The two went back home to Laramie.

"His heart and his try are worth a thousands bucks," Main said. "So I'm not going to let somebody else walk away with him for that. He's going to make too nice of a horse."

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