How To Pick A Wild Mustang

How To Pick A Wild Horse Final Final PDF by Amber Lynne Espinoza

This is our most requested advice. If you are trying to select a wild horse in person or from a short video clip on the online corral - this advice will help you loads on picking the right one.

How did I glean all this knowledge? 

Well unfortunately, a lot of trial and error.

I adopted my first mustang in 2009. I just wanted to see if I could train a wild horse, that was all. The ultimate test of any trainer. I had no real desire for color or to prove myself with anything truly difficult - underneath all my insanity I am quite pragmatic. Made sense to get something reasonably trainable for a first timer. 

So I chose a 2yo gelding. Geldings seemed safe, 2yo seemed young enough to not be too set in their ways and yet old enough that after a year of trying to gentle them I may actually try riding. All made perfectly logical sense to me, at the time. Truly, it is sound advice still. Generally, 2yo gelding ARE easier than say a 6yo gelding. After training A LOT of mustangs, I find mares easier to gentle though.

Anyhoo, after heading to the corrals and standing in a sea of brown, black and sorrel geldings - I was at a loss. The wranglers kept pointing me towards a gelding who was always seeming to be standing near me and I figured - what did I know? They OBVIOUSLY have spent way more time around wild horses than I had and knew a heck of a lot more. So I did what I recommend every knew mustang owner does - LISTEN to those before with real experience (not the yahoos with a couple of mustangs under their belts who think they know it all). 

That poor soul, bless his heart, somehow survived my learning journey and stupid mistakes to become one of the most reliable and amazing horses that has ever blessed my life. I was forever hooked on mustangs after that.

In 2016 I decided to try my hand at an Extreme Mustang Makeover. So naturally I pick the biggest and most difficult makeover to do - Fort Worth, TX. I got a random draw tiny sorrel who was pretty "spicy". I kept doing makeovers every year after that with each one teaching me more than decades of training domestic horses plus training mustangs through the TIP (Trainer Incentive Program) and client mustangs.

Then in 2019 I was asked to put on a TIP Challenge. It's a more amateur type mustang show where the contestants adopt a mustang, have three months to train them and then show them in-hand, rather than ridden. Burros were a part of this competition too. That started my journey of hosting a total of seven TIP Challenges over the next five years.

For each challenge I had to go to 2-3 different BLM corrals to take videos, photos and select suitable horses and burros for the challenge. We didn't want anything too wild since mostly children and amateurs would be training them. We also wanted to have some color and good conformation since many of these animals would stay with their people after the competition (there was no mandatory auction at the end). Pretty horses always gets people to sign up. More people sign up, more mustangs get adopted. 

This is where I honed my skills at selecting mustangs. I have sifted through thousands and thousands of mustangs. Took pictures of them, saw them move, how they interacted with the BLM staff, how they acted in the pen to be videoed, etc. Combining that with my horsemanship knowledge and mustang training experience - I got pretty darn good at picking out mustangs.

This PDF is a fun compilation of my knowledge that I hope you enjoy, laugh a little and it helps you on your mustang journey!