Local youths participate in Extreme Mustang Makeover challenge

Monday, June 26, 2017
Banner Graphic/Chelsea Modglin Local youths Leah Sallee, 13, of Fillmore (below), and Ryan Phillips, 14, of Brazil (above, will be taking part in the Exteme Makeover Youth and Mustang Challenge set for July 6-8 in Lexington, Ky. Children 8 to 17 years of age adopt and train a wild yearling in 100 days, and afterward are graded on conditing and health, groundwork (leading, touching, yielding to direct and indirect pressure and circling the trainer) and a freestyle performance. The competition is part of the Bureau of Land Management’s effort to reduce mustang overpopulation in western states.

Ryan Phillips, 14, of Brazil, and Leah Sallee, 13, of Fillmore, are participating in the Extreme Mustang Makeover Youth and Mustang Challenge.

The idea is to adopt and train a wild yearling in 100 days (about three months) for a competition in Lexington, Ky., from July 6-8, where children 8 to 17 years of age will be graded on conditioning/health, groundwork (leading, touching, yielding direct and indirect pressure and circling the trainer) and a freestyle performance.

Althougth the youth are allowed to keep their horses and apply for ownership at the end of a year, the adult horses are auctioned to spectators at the end of the competition. Competitors must pay a $125 adoption fee, but the youths receive $200 if they just make it to the competition. But that’s not a guarantee.

Banner Graphic/Chelsea Modglin

“You have to certain requirements,” Phillips said, “like a wooden fence, correct amount of space.”

His mother, Karen, added, “They wanted references of trainers or people you work with. We had to have a certain type of corral and environment for her. If they ever come out and see a condition they don’t like, which I doubt they do, but at the end of the year you apply for ownership.”

Getting past the paperwork is the easier part. The horses themselves present the bigger challenge.

“You’ve always got to be thinking what you’re doing,” Phillips said. “You’ve got to be able to read a horse because they’re always watching you. I just have to be calm and quiet. That’s what they do in a herd. They watch the leader of the herd. To her, I’m the leader. And since they’re young they don’t know what’s scary. So they’re going to be watching the leader, and if there are signs of stress, then they’re going to be stressed. It’s pretty fun.”

It’s called “in-hand” or ground training, which is basically a taming process.

“Mustangs are beautiful, versatile, intelligent creatures,” Kali Sublett, Executive Director of the Mustang Heritage Foundation (MHF), said. “To see them firsthand is a truly magical experience and one that we encourage everyone to take part in.”

The horses came from the west, where wild mustangs and burros have overpopulated. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which owns more than 245 million acres of public land in over 12 western states (including Alaska), estimates that 46,000 wild horses roam mostly in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Oregon.

“So there’s land, but there’s limited land,” Sallee’s mother, Cheryl, said. “Here, you know we see dead deer along the road, they see dead mustang. There’s tens of thousands of mustangs in holding facilities across the United States, so the Bureau of Land Management set up programs to get these horses into homes.“

Rather than euthanize or sterilize the animals, the government organization houses them in holding facilities spreading thousands of acres. Through the Wild Horse and Burro Program, it has placed 235,000 animals in homes since 1971. The Youth and Mustang Challenge that Phillips and Sallee are taking part in was created by the MHF, but is one of the BLM’s subprograms.

Since the start of the contest in 2007, 8,000 mustangs have found homes (300 in 2016). It is sponsored by Western Horseman, Ram Rodeo, Vetericyn, Martin Saddlebury, Classic Equine, Resistol and RIDE TV.

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