Texas A&M student tames wild mustangs for adoption
COLLEGE STATION, Texas— It wasn’t until Claire Walsh read “The Black Stallion,” a novel by Walter Farley about the relationship between a young boy and his horse, that her own love for horses began.
When she was about 12 years old, she searched to adopt a horse with her parents’ help.
“We went and looked, and I was so excited,” Walsh told The Eagle of BryanCollege Station. “I still didn’t know anything about horses other than a book. My mom signed me up for riding lessons, and I worked with the owner of the place and volunteered to pay for the lessons.”
Today, Walsh is a biomedical sciences sophomore at Texas A&M, and her love for horses has blossomed into a passion. Walsh is preparing for the Extreme Mustang Makeover, a competition hosted by the Mustang Heritage Foundation. The competition gives participants 100 days to train and tame a wild American mustang and make it suitable for adoption. The event will be Sept. 6-8 in Fort Worth.
“We have 100 days to start them under saddle and teach them to rein and teach them leg pressure to get them adopted out quicker,” Walsh said.
Walsh is around the 80-day mark of training. She’s fostering and training Halley’s Comet, a 5-yearold mare. Halley’s Comet is one of several horses that have been gathered on an emergency basis over the years near Pancake Range in Nevada by the Bureau of Land Management, Walsh said.
“(The Bureau of Land Management) determined that there wasn’t enough water or resources out there, and (mustangs) were starving or dying from dehydration, and so they quickly rounded them up,” Walsh said.
“A lot of the horses were underweight and had a lot of different health issues. She’s had a hard life, but she has it easy now. When I got her, you could see all of her ribs. She’s put on a lot of weight and muscled up really nice.”
Walsh has some experience participating in the Extreme Mustang Makeover. She competed in the program’s youth division when she was 16. She now owns the mustang she helped to train, a 5-yearold stallion named Dare to Dream.
One of the reasons Walsh got involved in the Extreme Mustang Makeover was to bring awareness to the overpopulation of wild horses in the western United States.
“They don’t have any natural predators in the wild, so they have to be managed,” Walsh said. “The only way to really manage them right now is different methods of fertility control, and the Bureau of Land Management will gather them. They’re way overpopulated in the West, and they’re overpopulated in the holding facilities because nobody’s adopting them. It’s a very rough situation.”
As of March 1, there were 66,976 wild horses grazing public lands, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The level as to which wild horse and burro populations can live “consistent with the land’s capacity to support them” is 26,690, according to the agency.
Leslie Easterwood, Texas A&M clinical assistant professor of equine community practice, said programs such as the Extreme Mustang Makeover help bring attention to some of the problems mustangs are facing out on the range.
“The issue of overpopulation of mustangs is huge,” Easterwood said. “In fact, it’s really prominent right now in our Legislature and in our Bureau of Land Management. These programs are awesome, and they help shed light on the problem, but they only serve a small percentage of the (Bureau of Land Management) horses that are out there and that are in trouble.
“It’s a growing issue and one that’s going to continue to be a problem until we find a solution for it.”
According to the Mustang Heritage Foundation, 3,866 mustangs have been adopted through Extreme Mustang Makeover events since the program’s start 11 years ago. Overall, the Mustang Heritage Foundation has helped 9,414 mustangs get adopted since 2007.
Sarah Muehlstein, Mustang Heritage Foundation program coordinator, said training mustangs is integral to making them more attractive to purchasers.
“Since they’re trained, they’re more likely to get adopted, which is why we do this program,” Muehlstein said. “We’re just trying to get that number down (of wild horses on the range) so both the land and the animal are better taken care of.”
Walsh said there are some stereotypes people have about mustangs, especially when it comes to training them.
“Unfortunately, people don’t have very good thoughts when they think of a mustang,” Walsh said. “They think of this wild, crazy (animal). (Mustangs) are underdogs for sure.”
Easterwood said a possible reason for the stereotype is because mustangs usually are removed from public lands at a less impressionable age.
“They’re usually 3- to 4-year-olds when we pull them off of the public land,” Easterwood said. “(But) if you pull them off when they’re babies and start getting them around people when they’re little guys, then there’s really not a lot of difference between them and domesticated horses that are born in captivity. When you gwet them at 3 years old, there’s a little bit of an adjustment period.”
Mattea Much, a Texas A&M animal science graduate student, also will be participating in the event, but in a different category— Extreme Mustang Makeover’s Mustang Open Show.
Much will be showing Shenanigan, a 1-year-old mare that she adopted three weeks ago. In her competition category, she will participate in a handling and condition portion, which entails on-the-ground exercises testing how the horse responds to certain commands and cues.
“It’s unbelievable actually when you think about (that) you’re working with technically a wild animal,” Much said. “Just within three weeks she has made so much progress. I can call to her, I can handle her, and she’s extremely trusting.
“I think these horses are so in tune with nature that they’re seeking a leader. … When you show them, ‘ Hey, I’m going to be your leader now,’ they take to it really strongly.”
Even though Much has yet to attend her first competition, she said she plans to participate again in the future.
“The main reason that I got started in it was because I had Claire’s advice and her support,” Much said. “I would say that gave me my initial boost of confidence, but now that I’ve done (the training), it’s like, ‘ This isn’t too bad.’ (Mustangs) can be very versatile animals.”
Walsh said she’s not sure how she will fare against the rest of the competition in terms of being placed in the top 10 of her category. She said her main goal is to make sure Halley’s Comet is placed in good hands.
“A lot of these guys have been training horses longer than I’ve been alive, but it’s cool to compete against them,” Walsh said.
“No matter what I just want her to get a good home.”
Although Walsh said she didn’t grow up in a horse family—her father is in the Coast Guard and her motheris a marine biologist—her love for horses has spread to those around her. She coached her younger sister, who participated in the Extreme Mustang Makeover in 2016, and this year she’s coaching her youngest sister, who is participating in the competition’s youth division.
“It’s just something I love, and I want other people to fall in love with it too,” Walsh said.
“I think these horses are so in tune with nature that they’re seeking a leader.” If you pull them off (public land) when they’re babies and start getting them around people when they’re little guys, then there’s really not a lot of difference
between them and domesticated horses that are born in
captivity.”
—Claire Walsh