By Laurie Kingery
Hello again,
readers of the Christian Fiction Historical Society blog! I have a book out
this month, HILL COUNTRY CATTLEMAN,
published by Love Inspired Historicals. Horses figured prominently in its plot,
since my hero, Raleigh Masterson, is a cowboy who rode a blue roan stallion,
and its heroine, Violet Brookfield, and English aristocrat, foxhunted (or
"rode to hounds) back in England and was loaned a pinto mare by the hero to
ride while she visited in Texas.
So horses of the
Old West seemed like a good topic to explore for this month's blog. Of course,
there isn't room to cover all the horses that appeared in the "Old
West," but the two most frequent types that would be encountered were the
mustang.
Horses were
unknown in the Americas
until the coming of the Spanish explorers such as Cortez. Inevitably, some of
the horses got loose and began to gather in herds and to breed in the wild, and
became known as mestengos, derived from the Spanish word mesteño,
meaning "stray livestock animal."
--By Lynne Gerard (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons--
The Plains
Indians that we think of as such great horsemen were afoot until they saw how
the Spanish put them to many uses, and they lost no time in stealing them from
the Spanish or capturing many of those who ran loose. They first used them to
replace dogs as pullers of travois, a
platform or net supported by trailing poles, which could transport their
belongings as well as children and the elderly. It wasn't long before they
learned to ride horses into battle and in buffalo hunts, and became the feared
warriors that we remember today.
Mustangs are
usually compact, strong boned and hardy, which made them valuable to westerners
in need of horses. Herds were often captured and those fit for riding were "broken"
to saddle—often by riding them until they'd gotten the bucking out of their
systems, even if it meant repeatedly re-mounting horses that had just thrown
their riders. The wise horseman, of course, gentled a horse gradually and
kindly, but many of the cowboys' horses were only "green-broke" at
best and had to buck a little before they settled down to the job at
hand—cutting cattle, driving cattle to market, chasing down strays, and so
forth.
The modern
mustang no longer has the genetic makeup of the Iberian horse. Other breeds
have intermingled with it, either by getting loose or by deliberate attempts by
ranchers to refine the feral horse. The American Mustang Association (AMA) was
formed in 1962 in San Diego,
California to preserve &
document the pedigrees of American Mustang horses. Horses are registered to
meet certain standards & measurements in the hopes of preserving the
characteristics of the original Spanish bloodlines. The breed standard states
that the horse can be any color although more traditional Spanish horse
coloring is valued including roan, dun and buckskin. It is a wild animal,
tending to be stubborn, high-spirited, and full of vigor.
--By Mcgregorranch at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons--
In modern times,
mustangs were used as a resource by the military or captured for use as food,
especially dog food, or poisoned and shot from helicopters, because some
ranchers felt their free-roaming ways damaged crops or decreased grazing
available to domestic animals. "Mustanging" was graphically shown in
the John Huston movie, "The Misfits," starring the late Clark Gable
and Marilyn Monroe.
Fortunately, the
mustang is too much of a symbol of freedom and an icon of the Old West to
continue unprotected forever. The mustang population had been greatly reduced
by the time the first federal wild free-roaming horse protection law was
enacted in 1959, the "Wild Horse Annie Act", which prohibited the use
of motor vehicles for hunting wild horses and burros. Protection was increased
further by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which provided
for protection of certain previously established herds of horses and burros. Today,
the Bureau of Land Management is the authority that oversees the protection of
mustangs on public lands, with the Forest Service assisting on additional wild
horse and burro territories.
The protection of
the mustang by law remains a sore point with some ranchers. In order to prevent
overpopulation, some mustangs are periodically captured, sometimes by use of a
"Judas horse" who leads bands of mustangs into a pen and is then released. Most horses that are captured are offered for
adoption to individuals or groups willing and able to provide humane, long-term
care after payment of an adoption fee of at least $125. As of 2010, nearly
225,000 Mustangs have been adopted.
I might never
have had the opportunity to see real mustangs up close, but my stepdaughter and
her family live about halfway up on a mountain near Cold
Creek, Nevada, about an hour north
of Las Vegas.
Here, on the edge of public land, Here mustangs live unmolested, often grazing
on the lawns of the delighted inhabitants, who provide hay in the winter so
that the mustangs will not grow hungry.
I hope you've
enjoyed this overview of the American mustang of the Old West. Because this is
the publication month for my book, HILL
COUNTRY CATTLEMAN, there will be a drawing and one lucky commenter will win
a copy!
Best of luck and blessings,
Laurie
Kingery
