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Wild Mustangs have been a part of the western U.S. for hundreds of years. Learn about steps being made to both manage the wild Mustang herds, and provide an opportunity for feral horses to become useful citizens with desensitizing and formal training.
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00:28Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
00:40The largest population of wild horses in the world can be found in the U.S., wild American
00:46Mustangs.
00:48The Mustang's story is a dramatic one.
00:52A hundred years ago, these horses were ruthlessly exploited.
00:56They were captured in their thousands and used in wartime.
01:00And, at the same time, the Wild West was being colonized by settlers, resulting in reduced
01:06habitat and diminishing food sources for the Mustangs.
01:10In the space of a single century, the number of wild Mustangs dropped from around 2 million
01:15to just 40,000.
01:19Today, Mustangs are no longer threatened, and there is great respect for these horses.
01:26The way in which they are treated when captured and tamed shows that Americans have truly taken
01:31the Mustangs into their hearts.
01:42Wild Mustangs live mainly in the western states, particularly in the state of Nevada.
01:52Mustangs herd together in small bands of 7 to 12 horses.
01:56Each band has a harem stallion, and the rest are mares and foals.
02:02The stallion is almost always at a slight distance from his harem, keeping a watchful eye out for
02:08rival stallions.
02:10But, although the stallion is the leader of the herd, the lead mare always goes first, and the others all
02:17follow.
02:21There are often bands of young stallions close to the herd.
02:24They have not yet established a harem of their own, and group together in what are known as
02:29bachelor bands.
02:31These groups stay close to the herd, waiting for an opportunity to run off with some of
02:36the leading stallions' mares.
02:38No luck this time, and they slope off.
02:46Mustangs were originally tame horses, brought over from Spain to America 500 years ago.
02:52The horses, which escaped the Spaniards, have run free ever since, living by the laws of nature,
02:59out on the great American plains, in an open and harsh environment.
03:05The American authorities want to maintain the population at its current level.
03:09The authorities estimate that on the open spaces left in Midwest America, there is only
03:15enough food and water to maintain a population of about 40,000 wild horses.
03:24Leaving them unchecked, I mean, the population in a few years will just explode, and pretty
03:29soon you'll have horses starving to death out here.
03:32They'll be fighting over waters.
03:34They'll drink water holes dry, because some of the waters are very limited on how much they
03:38produce.
03:40Mustangs are very prolific, and the population would grow annually by many thousands if the
03:45numbers were not kept in check.
03:48To keep the population at the current 40,000, the American authorities have to gather around
03:5410,000 wild horses each year.
04:10A work team is getting ready to start the gather.
04:13They are wranglers, not cowboys.
04:16To them, cowboy is a derogatory word.
04:18They work for the American authority known as BLM, Bureau of Land Management.
04:23Mustangs are completely protected and may only be captured by the BLM.
04:28They may not be hunted nor caught for commercial purposes.
04:32Do we want to go take a quick look?
04:34Well yeah, we'll go look.
04:35No, I mean right at this, and see.
04:37Yeah.
04:38And that's where all those horses were sitting was right in here.
04:40Right, and that's where they were.
04:42No panties.
04:43Okay, everything's ready.
04:44Relax.
04:45Relax, Bob.
04:46We'll take care of you.
04:46Okay.
04:47Ah!
04:55Traps are strategically set to blend into the landscape.
05:00We try not to interfere with the animals on the range any more than we have to.
05:04And so pretty much what that amounts to is we go out and monitor the herds, evaluate their
05:09habitat, evaluate the animal's health, and then when we have an identified need where maybe
05:15the rangelands in poor condition or the animals are not responding well, then we'll conduct
05:20a removal.
05:28Even before the trap is finished, pilot Jim Hicks is sent off in his helicopter.
05:34Helicopters and wranglers on horseback are used to gather the wild horses.
05:39Jim was probably the best horse pilot that they've ever had or ever will have.
05:45You not only have to be a skilled pilot, you have to have an understanding of wild horses
05:50and what a wild horse is capable of doing and kind of understand their tendencies.
05:55I think a lot of times Jim knows what a horse is going to do before he does it.
06:02The inside of the trap is almost ready.
06:20large rolls of burlap are erected as a fence to guide the horses into the trap.
06:25The horses see the burlap as a wall they cannot go through.
06:31Jim Hicks has found the first herd.
06:35He waits with driving them in.
06:38Firstly, he wants to get an idea of how many herds are in the area.
06:49He drives several herds together before leading them back to the corral.
07:00A dust of cloud reveals a new herd of Mustangs.
07:20He's almost 20 kilometers from the trap and now sends a message back that he's beginning to drive the horses
07:26in.
07:27But firstly, he needs to get the horses out from under the trees and down onto open terrain.
07:34These maneuvers are dangerous.
07:36Jim has crashed several times when his rotor blades came too close to the treetops.
07:41But up to now, he has escaped unharmed.
08:03Three stallions have run off.
08:05The stallions are the most difficult to drive in and they are not as easily frightened by the helicopter.
08:11On previous gathers, Jim has had to get close to the ground,
08:15pushing the stallions with the helicopter's skids in order to drive them back into the herd.
08:32We always have radio contact with the helicopter and we're continually talking back and forth about what obstacles he's coming
08:39to, what we need to do.
08:41Is there any baby colts? Is there any old horses that can't keep up?
08:46So communication is a big item and we try as hard as we can not to ever drop a colt.
08:52And if we do, we always go back and get it if we can find it.
08:56Out on the open plain, Jim Hicks is careful not to drive the horses on too hard,
09:01so that foals and older individuals don't get left behind.
09:06When the herd approaches the trap, there are more problems with the stallions.
09:11They run off to all sides and Jim Hicks has to ask the wranglers for help.
09:41So keeping you up to a little bit,
09:47These horses have been given this less than flattering name
09:50because they lure the wild horses into the trap.
09:58Once we get the horses down to the mouth of the trap,
10:02a Judas horse or a Prada horse has turned loose.
10:06This is a horse that's trained to go to the trap,
10:09and horses are herd animals or following animals.
10:14And once this Prada horse is turned loose,
10:17the wild horses will follow it on into the trap,
10:19and then the wranglers come in behind and close the gate.
10:51The Judas horses are immediately separated from the wild ones.
11:05They do settle down pretty quick if you don't stir them.
11:08And we've learned over the years to not handle any of them a horseback.
11:12A wild horse is scared to death of somebody a horseback.
11:15And I think it comes from something on their back.
11:18They relate it to a lion or something jumping on their back.
11:21You take a helicopter, he was probably out there, what, 45 minutes?
11:24Yeah, and then they're here.
11:26They're here, it's all over.
11:27You sort them, it's done with, and they haven't wore their feet to nothing.
11:31Amongst the captured horses is a rarity, an albino horse.
11:36But it is over ten years old and will be released again.
11:43Some of these stallions, they absolutely hate each other.
11:46And I've seen them where they fight coming into the wings at the end of the trap.
11:51Fighting going onto the trailer, they fight on the trailer,
11:53and then we turn them into the stallion pen and they fight there until we ship.
11:56I've seen that too.
11:57They fight on the truck when we ship them to Palomino Valley.
12:00They really mean.
12:00They really mean.
12:00They are.
12:02They can kill a mare, they can kill a colt real easily.
12:05We separate them here for the same reason, so they don't get killed inside the pen here.
12:15Back whenever things were first starting, there were more horses lost.
12:18I know when I first started in the horse program, up to 5% was acceptable death loss.
12:23And now, if you get over 1%, they're questioning what's going on.
12:27Most accidents happen because the horses think they can go through the bars,
12:31and so they run directly into them.
12:33But now, black plastic snow fences are put up around the bars,
12:37and these accidents rarely happen anymore.
12:40Before we was working them and loading them, before we started using them on the outside of it,
12:44we broke quite a few necks because they jump at them panels and try to go through them.
12:50The moment the Mustangs are in the enclosure, the foals are removed.
12:54They are also kept separate from the adult horses when being transported on trailers.
12:59Otherwise, the foals are at risk of being squashed to death under the very stressful conditions.
13:04We're sorting off the colts into the small pen over there,
13:07so where they don't go on the trailer loads with the big horses to keep them from getting kicked or
13:12trampled.
13:12Because if we put them on the trailer with the big ones, they could get killed on there.
13:21They're tough animals, and the more you get to know them, the environment they live in,
13:26the life they've led to get to this point, the more you respect them.
13:35The gathers continue until late afternoon.
13:39Jim Hicks makes four more runs and brings in over 120 horses that day.
14:14After five days, around 400 Mustangs have been caught and are transported to Palomino Valley.
14:21The trap is dismantled and moved to another area.
14:44Palomino Valley is the American Authority's central reception area for captured Mustangs.
14:49There is space here for around 2,000 horses.
14:55The last of the captured horses arrive.
15:33Typically, when the wild horses come in off the range from a gather operation, the very first thing they'll do
15:39is,
15:39we'll run them through our squeeze chutes and let the veterinarian take a look at them,
15:43to make sure if they have any physical injuries or if they have anything that requires immediate attention,
15:49then he could administer to them.
15:51And then after that, what they'll do is give them the normal range of vaccines for a domestic horse.
15:57And then we also give each horse an individual identification number.
16:01That's that freeze mark that you'll see on their neck.
16:03Each animal is individually identified.
16:06It'll tell the age of the horse.
16:08And that's tied to another code that we assigned to the animal called a signalman key,
16:14which is based on the sex of the animal, the coloration of it, face worlds.
16:19And that way, through our computer system, we could track each individual animal.
16:25Once it receives its freeze mark and its vaccinations, we turn it out into these pens.
16:30And we'll keep it for at least 30 days so that it could get booster vaccinations.
16:40A Mustang is anaesthetized so that the vet can clean a wound on its shoulder.
16:46So we've given him the anaesthetic now.
16:52The anaesthetic takes 10 seconds to work.
17:19The wound is disinfected with iodine.
17:25We'll be in trouble unless you, you should.
17:28The vet lances the wound and presses out the pus.
17:41All right, guys.
17:42You want to try this other whole rake?
17:45The wound is superficial and will heal quickly.
17:55The health of the Mustangs is good.
17:57Amongst the 400 horses gathered, not one is lame.
18:02The horses possess what vets call clean legs.
18:06No bulging at the joints and strong and healthy hooves.
18:10You could ride them for weeks and weeks and never shoo them because they have perfect hard feet.
18:15You take a saddle horse, keep them in the crowd for 10 years and shoo them every six weeks.
18:20What do you do?
18:20You halfway destroy their feet.
18:23You destroy their ability to pump blood to their feet.
18:27When you wear your feet down like these are, then you have terrific healthy feet.
18:33Actually, to shoo a horse, you should shoo him for six weeks and then trim him down and turn him
18:38out for a month.
18:39Six weeks, two months, that's the limit.
18:42And then they should be barefooted for a while.
18:45So a wild horse has got terrific feet.
18:49But the reason they are is because man don't mess with them.
19:10In the mountains, here at Snake River, something very dramatic happened over three million years ago.
19:16A great number of horses died in a short period of time.
19:19What we're currently thinking is that it was a drought and that a shallow river was drying up.
19:26And horses are very, very much dependent on a water source.
19:30So eventually you're going to have the animals dying out and you can imagine the bottom of this dried up
19:37river covered with dead horses.
19:40This mass death has left the area around Snake River with one of the largest collections of horse fossils in
19:46the world.
19:47What makes this particular site so exciting is that it is the single largest sample of the modern horse genus
19:54Equus.
19:55And so we're looking at a population of animals, over 200 that have been found here,
20:00that allows us to really understand the origin and the evolutionary history of the modern horse group.
20:09The fossils are embedded in hard rock and are impossible to remove on site.
20:14So blocks of rock containing the fossils are transported to laboratories and here, paleontologists work to free the fossils from
20:22the rock.
20:29The horses found at Snake River are the forefathers of all living horses today.
20:35This is the oldest and the first species of the modern horse genus Equus.
20:39So we can think of this as the ancestral form, not only for Schiavalski's horse, but for what eventually gave
20:47rise to zebras and donkeys.
20:49So this is sort of the basic model from which the other living horse lineages could be derived.
20:56So what did it look like, the forefather of horses?
20:59If you start looking at details of the skeleton, we can say it's really more zebra-like than horse-like.
21:06And apparently some features of the skeleton suggest that this was very much like the living grevy zebra in Africa
21:12today.
21:18It's on the North American continent that the horse originated, a process which has taken 55 million years.
21:26And from here, it migrated to Asia, Europe and other continents.
21:31Over the last 55 million years, the horse has evolved from being the size of a cat to the large
21:37animal we know today.
21:39The horse became larger and heavier, and at some point in its history, it had to adapt so that it
21:45was able to run.
21:48As grasslands develop, the forests break up, we see a lot of this adaptation for running probably related to open
21:56country.
21:56There's no place to hide from predators.
21:58If you look at this horse here, he's already down to one toe, like the modern horse.
22:06And this is part of the long evolutionary history of horses becoming adapted for running, which includes reducing the number
22:14of their toes.
22:1710,000 years ago, the horse totally disappeared from the North American continent.
22:2310,000 years ago, Equus disappeared here in North America at the end of the Ice Age, along with mammoths,
22:31mastodons, camels, and other large herbivores.
22:33And one of the great mysteries is why here in North America, a group of animals like the horse that
22:39was so successful for so many millions of years disappeared, and yet it was able to survive in Eurasia.
22:47American Mustangs only descend indirectly from their original American ancestors.
22:53And this was through the horses which migrated to Asia and onto Europe two million years ago, only to return
23:00to the North American continent with the help of man 500 years ago.
23:05The horse returned home to its place of origin.
23:21Apart from the authorities themselves, only one private individual in America has been given permission to tame wild horses.
23:29His name is Steve Mantle, and he is one of the famous horse whisperers, someone who can do things with
23:36horses that no one else can.
23:44The newly captured horses are sorted.
23:48Stallions over a certain age are removed.
23:50They are not suitable for riding, because it would be impossible to tame them completely.
24:04The stallions will be released into large sanctuaries.
24:07It is necessary to be able to identify them from the air, so they are freeze marked with an extra
24:13large identification code.
24:40We have to take care of them.
24:40Go right out there.
24:41Well, the horsemanship, to me, would be someone who is willing to learn new things.
25:03That has no ego involved.
25:05They are out there for the horse.
25:06They are just one who is willing to learn new things.
25:07They're not out there for themselves.
25:08They're willing to be honest.
25:12They're not trying to snowball anybody with anything phony.
25:18Because if the horse can win in every situation, whether it's a mustang or a domestic horse
25:25or whatever it is, ultimately the owner, the rider and the trainer are going to win.
25:31If the horse doesn't win, nobody wins.
25:34It's when Steve Mantle stands before an individual horse that you can see his very special abilities.
25:41We're going to introduce to this little horse something that he's looking for.
25:45He's in here all by himself and the natural thing for him to do is be with a herd of
25:50horses.
25:50That's where he's the safest.
25:52So we're going to try to take the place of the herd in his mind and teach him that when
25:58he's with us, that's a good thing and when he's away from us, it's a bad thing.
26:03And he's going to learn to start coming with us and being with me here just pretty quick
26:09because he's already looking for somebody.
26:12That's why he's doing all this pacing and working around here.
26:15Now he's come to this gate right here because that's where he came in.
26:18So that's where he wants to go right back out.
26:20These wild horses naturally zero in on things like that.
26:25So we're going to strengthen the right side of the horse first.
26:29Build the right eye strong and drive him.
26:33Now to drive a horse, you've got to do it from the hips.
26:36You can't do it from the ribs or the shoulder.
26:38We're just going to keep driving him around here and then we're going to offer him a chance
26:45to come back.
26:46It's starting to sink in really quick.
26:48Now we lost his attention, now we've got it back.
26:51See how we've got both ears right here, now we've lost it, now we've got it back.
26:55Lost it, now we've got it back.
26:57Once you get this here, your training process is starting to really build quick.
27:05Now I've got to send him around the other direction because now he's okay with me on
27:11the right.
27:13So now we've got to get him okay with me on the left.
27:15I'm going to have to hustle him to get him by the camera.
27:18Now we're going to hustle him again and let him coast off.
27:22He's already wanting.
27:24See, he's a pretty smart little horse.
27:26He's finding the answer.
27:28The horse can read your body language and he reads it better than you ever thought of reading
27:35his.
27:36First off, in his mind, you're a predator when you come in the crow.
27:39And then, after a while, he finds out, well, you really haven't attacked me yet.
27:43So then, if you can set your body language to where he can work off that, then you start
27:50building that relationship right there.
27:59Now believe it or not, this horse has never been worked.
28:03He's been run through the chute, castrated and branded, and that's it.
28:08But like I say, now see, he's having a hard time staying here, so we're going to put some
28:12pressure and get him hooked back on.
28:15Now we're going to come again and get another adjustment there, that's better.
28:33Now this little horse doesn't know that being petted is a good thing, so you have to teach
28:39them, but it's a good thing.
28:44And they might nip you.
28:46You just have to be aware of that, be ready for it, watch out for it.
28:50Once they find out that being petted is a good thing, the rest of your process is pretty easy.
28:58There's a saying out there that if you look these horses in the eyes that you send them
29:02away, well, my experience is the eyes are the window to the soul and if you want to know
29:07what's going on in his mind, you better be looking at his eyes and his ears and checking
29:13that out.
29:14Because I'm looking right dead in his eyes and he's sure not wanting to leave very bad.
29:39Now I don't know what we've been at, a half hour, 45 minutes, maybe?
29:42Yeah, and that is quick.
29:44Yeah, and we've got a two-year-old wild mustang that is really, at this point right here, not
29:55a whole lot different than a domestic two-year-old that's been run out on the range.
30:00The only thing is his sense of self-preservation is like up here and a domestic horse is down
30:06here because every horse has it, I mean that's how they survive.
30:09We're going to use this flag as a training tool rather than a weapon.
30:14So many people use this flag as a weapon because they get scared and they don't know what else
30:17to do so they just shake the daylights out of it.
30:19We're going to let him check it out.
30:27This represents your head, your hat, your shoulders.
30:30And if the wind blows your hat off and it comes floating down to the ground, it's going to
30:37bother him if you haven't taken this away.
30:42Now, if you're out riding this horse someplace and a plastic sack blows by, and see that
30:48front foot come off the ground right there, he had to, natural.
30:52I mean, he just, he couldn't help it.
30:54But pretty quick, he'll just stand here and this will go floating by and he won't even look
31:00at it.
31:02Okay, now he's set himself up for us to see if we can't teach him something.
31:09We're just going to put enough pressure there that he just made the turn right there.
31:16And now he is just so tickled, he knows he did something.
31:20He don't know what he did, but he did something.
31:24And it turned out to be pretty good because he's really troubled with that rope around behind
31:28him, he worked himself out of it, and there was no more pressure, and then, now we're
31:35in here and we're going to give him just a little bit of reward.
31:38Let the horse learn that he can work off the pressure and he can find release and relief
31:44when he comes off that pressure.
31:45If the pressure's never released, he has no incentive to come off of it.
31:49But if it is, he'll just, I mean, he'll start out to where they're resisting it, then pretty
31:54work they're accepting it, and then they'll be turning so light and handling so nice because
32:00they're craving it.
32:01I mean, it's like, oh yeah, I can do this.
32:03And they want to do it.
32:07If he wants to go on by, that's fine, because what we're going to teach him is, by going
32:11on by, he's going to get into pressure.
32:14But if he stops right where you are, there's no pressure.
32:22It's okay, he got a good education right there.
32:27That didn't hurt him at all.
32:29After just two hours work, Steve Mantle judges how far he has progressed.
32:35If the horse allows him to lift its leg, he has won the horse's confidence.
32:40The legs are extremely sensitive, and many horse owners, even after years of riding, are
32:46not allowed to touch their horse's legs.
33:02I usually get this right here first or second day.
33:23Do you think this trust you gained here, will the horse give that to another person, or do
33:32you step very much back, if there's another person coming in?
33:37You want to try me out?
34:06You want to try me out?
34:17I think you can go right up between these eyes.
34:38after you sir i really admire them they're to me they're they're like the coyote they're adaptable
34:43probably the last three things left on the face of this earth will be them the coyote and the
35:02house fly the free life of the mustangs has forced them to survive on nature's terms this has made
35:08them strong and healthy so vets and other people interested in horses have began to study mustangs
35:14and compare them with the modern saddle horse a lot of veterinarians have studied them to see why
35:21wild horses don't get navicular and all this too much the concept today is every horse has got to
35:27have a holder on him and it's gonna have shoes on it well if you keep shoes on it 12
35:31months out of
35:32the year in term over the years you will shorten his lifespan of his feet by 50 percent at least
35:40joint and bone disease are some of the most common ailments among modern saddle horses
35:45these diseases often develop into chronic conditions making the horse lame and therefore
35:51useless as a saddle horse this often ends with the animal being put down mustangs and modern saddle
35:58horses are both descendants of spanish horses from the time when spain was the motherland of horse
36:04breeding they're related both in terms of race and build but while mustangs have roamed free for the
36:11past 500 years the evolution of the modern saddle horse has been controlled by man all the horses that
36:18we breed today came out of stock that look just like this it's just that people people bred for what
36:26they preferred be a long legs or a certain face or a certain head shape mustangs weigh around 400
36:34kilos and are fast and very athletic modern saddle horses on the other hand are bred as large heavy
36:40animals of about seven to eight hundred kilos but they have retained the angled leg joints characteristic
36:46of a horse weighing only 400 kilos this gives saddle horses a certain suppleness and speed but when a
36:52horse weighs 800 kilos its legs cannot take the strain for long the legs wear out and develop joint
36:58disorders mother nature i think is a is a better breeder than we are those animals with those
37:06confirmation faults that had the potential to compromise the breed usually do not have the
37:12opportunity to reproduce and hence those components are eliminated from the breed whereas we have the ability
37:20to breed anything and despite the fact that we know we have potential problems that will be passed on
37:29genetically we'll continue to breed those either due to greed or misplaced affection or other issues
37:45riverton wyoming is home to one of the five state prisons in the usa where wild mustangs are tamed
37:53it's an open prison with 150 inmates they have served part of their sentence in other prisons and must
38:01exhibit good behavior to be placed in riverton some of the things they learn about here are farming and how
38:08to train wild mustangs well it's it's different coming to prison and serving my time doing something
38:13i like i'm not no top hand on training a horse but there's there's a quite a difference between a
38:19wild
38:20horse and a domestic horse they got a lot more spirit these ones most of the inmates that we get
38:25here
38:25have never worked with horses and so i think a number of them you know they come and they don't
38:31want
38:31to have anything to do with it they're scared of the horses but you know once they get into it
38:35most of
38:35the inmates really see it as a good program and and and i don't get that many requests for job
38:40changes
38:40once they get started 17 months and you still don't get used to it it's it's like better than a
38:47cup of
38:48coffee in the morning it's it's just a big rush it's fun though
38:51a little nervous about it 12 years ago there were a number of prisons the blm would would use to
39:01to
39:02train the horses and and we saw that we saw that as a really good opportunity to introduce you know
39:07the same program here at the honor farm and it looked like it would fit really well with what we
39:12tried to do which is that focus on work and and trying to give inmates a sense of accomplishment and
39:17a
39:17sense of pride in what they're doing in a sense of you know if they work hard and do the
39:21right thing
39:21that they're going to do well for educational reasons training proceeds on different levels
39:28newly arrived inmates start at level one and only work with completely untamed horses a little bit
39:34nervous yeah things a lot bigger than i am so uh-huh that's wrong a little yeah they're strong a
39:41little
39:41nervous not too bad though i've been around horses a little bit so it wasn't too bad
39:48oh eight or ten men right through here and we'll have put four or five right through this so just
39:52start lining out in the circle falls right along the fence the first thing they teach the horses
39:56is not to run at the sight of humans the men were what happened yeah that's okay he'll come here
40:02he comes
40:08all right all right you see him how he's looking at us here a little bit
40:14that's what we want him to do right here there there's the stop there there he's figuring out
40:18right here when he stops and looks let him figure us out here we're not putting any pressure on him
40:23we're not trying to do nothing to him right here until he settles down just a little bit here
40:27later on the same day they test how the horses react when they are tethered with a rope
40:32horse out
40:36all right just let him look
40:43this is what we this is what this is what we like right here if we can get that horse
40:48looking
40:49there's the first step of leading right there see there and you see the boys hadn't even pulled the
40:54rope there so that tells us right there that horse is is is is willing to do what we want
41:00him to do
41:00this is a nice horse right here keep his nose to you just a little bit
41:17now brown if you get up to his nose just rub his nose a little bit and then just slide
41:21your hand
41:21back over that there now just turn away and walk away there just a little bit there you go come
41:27on
41:27down your rope a little bit now when you now stop right there brown next time walk up to him
41:31there
41:32and rub his nose a little bit and just turn your head and just kind of back up that rope
41:35a little
41:35faster than that don't be afraid don't don't be don't don't think he's going to do nothing
41:41there now there you go yeah just move right on back there kind of fast there that's good
41:50but not all horses give in so easily
41:57there's the there's the start
42:07we ask the horse to come around we ask him to stop we ask him to wait for us if
42:13he don't
42:13it then i'm wrong i went too far too fast too quick and then it's my program not the horses
42:29mike buchanan runs the horse program his philosophy is that the inmates are not horse breakers but horse
42:36tamers he has left the old rodeo methods behind whereby the horse's will was broken by use of force
42:43now they use teamwork trust and respect they're just just try what you can pay and just
42:53when a horse is born in the wild the first thing the mother does is start nuzzling right at the
42:57point
42:58of the shoulders right up high on the withers and then they massage that's that's the bond
43:02we want to start massaging and petting right around the above the neck right on the main there right on
43:08the
43:08withers that's the first contact that the wild horse and the baby gets contact right there
43:15try it again pay you're doing fine
43:22just keep going keep going see he's wanting to do it now stay keep your hand there keep your hand
43:27there keep your hand there keep it there keep it there keep it there that's okay there that's better
43:31that's better for the first time in their lives the horses are bridled and must slowly become accustomed
43:42to wearing a saddle
43:59sometimes if you just reach underneath them like that
44:04first when we saddle them they're a little bit rough you know but after a little while
44:08they they gentle down and they know we're not going to hurt them you know so
44:12they trust they trust us
44:22we teach it a few little things here before we even get on if we uh tie up a right
44:29rein or a left
44:30rein and walk off with its head turned the horse will understand right and left
44:36and then what we look for here is a crossover
44:40the left hind foot will cross over the right hind foot
44:46the reason why that's important is because if you was on top of that and the horse decided to do
44:52something wild we can pull on the rein we can bump it with the left side and it will unlock
44:59itself
44:59instead of buck run off it will unlock and cross over
45:06there and now hold his head just like that that that's that's really important right here that
45:10just don't pull it just don't pull after a month of intensive training the horse is calm and confident
45:16around people now is when it will become clear if the training has been a success
45:23will the horse accept having a person climb on and sit in the saddle all right now just step up
45:28there a
45:28little bit count to three a little bit there and they've known payment a little bit stand a little bit
45:36there okay good
45:44now if you want to just stay right there we'll turn this horse loose and then we'll see what happens
45:51he don't know he's untied so we kick the inside leg relax a little bit there there we go there
45:57we go
45:58there we go kick that inside leg just there you are relax relax give him just a little head just
46:05let him have his head just a little bit in eight days i kill my number and i'm going to
46:11go to alaska
46:11and hopefully work in some riding stables a lot of the programs really didn't help me but the horse
46:17program that's it's a life changer i mean it doesn't have to be about money or or girls or drugs
46:24or
46:24anything that if i'm happy with myself and who i am then i can make it and that's why i
46:29want to
46:29continue working in horses the inmates really form a bond with the horses you'll even see in the auctions
46:36when the horses are being offered for public sale that uh as they're as they're leaving you know the
46:42inmates will uh express a little emotion maybe even see a tear from time to time so yeah the bond
46:48is is pretty tight between the horses and the inmates let's do that one more time here just as
46:54as nice as you can come back on the down a little bit
46:57come around over here by this pond and then just stop over and look over your shoulder give them the
47:10right signal turn around and go the other way just a little bit always stop your horse make him stop
47:16and turn look over your shoulder billy and just turn over look around just come on right on back
47:22that's good enough all right all right that's good fellas that's good
47:40adoption is the last stop on the mustangs path from freedom on the plains to a new life around people
47:48the trained mustangs are sold at auction although it is called adoption because of the stringent
47:54restrictions regarding their sale people must apply to become approved as adoptees and are obligated
48:01to give the horse a good life the authorities constantly check the people live up to these
48:08obligations if during the first year it becomes evidence that a horse is suffering from neglect
48:13the authorities can take it back adopting a mustang has become very desirable especially the rare
48:22mustangs with spanish blood in their veins which are sold for large sums of money it was a real
48:28surprise for us when we came in on monday morning and heard that we had a wild horse adopt for
48:33nineteen
48:33thousand dollars we have a lot of horses adopt for the in the thousand to two thousand dollar range
48:40special animals especially those that have been trained through the correctional facilities
48:44but nineteen thousand dollars was unique and i hope you can see that again someday
48:51experienced horse owners brave enough to adopt an untamed horse can acquire a pure mustang for an
48:57administration fee of only a hundred and twenty five dollars
49:01horses that are too old to be tamed or adopted are not put down
49:06but released into large grassy sanctuaries in oklahoma and kansas where they live until they die a natural
49:13death the wild horse is a symbol of the west and the frontier movement
49:22and uh it will always be that way
49:31and uh it will always be that way
49:50so
50:03so
50:05so
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