BLACKFOOT, Idaho (KIFI) — Ten teenagers, all members of the 4-H club, chose a yearling mustang to train over the next couple months.
Wednesday was pick up day, and the group will have until August 29th to train the wild horses, at which point they will participate in a compete in an In-Hand Trail Challenge at the Eastern Idaho State Fair. The horses will then be put up for adoption on August 30th.
Among other things, the horses must be able to stay calm when touched by strangers, led around a corral, and haltered.
The trainers chose their preferred mustang based on how they responded to the stress of the new environment. They looked for which ones took a moment to think about a situation and which ones were more prone to act quickly. They also chose based on physical characteristics such as the color of the coats, the look in their eyes and even the size of their hoofs.
“They’re going to take one of these young wild horses home this summer and train it, and bring it back to the state fair and show it in an in-hand trail class, and then we will offer it for adoption on the first Saturday of the fair,” says Juley Smith, a representative for the Bureau of Land Management.
The University of Idaho extension of the 4-H Youth Development Club and Bureau of Land Management Idaho Wild Horse and Burro Program have partnered on the project since 2009, and more that 400 wild horses have been placed into private care. The Bureau of Land Management says the program has saved $6 million in caring costs for unadopted wild horses.
