Wild Mustang From Bidding To 1st Ride - Challis Idaho BLM Horse Herd

This has been the most challenging horse I’ve ever started. He’s taught me patience and I’ve taught him not to fear me.
Wild Bureau of land management (BLM) horses aka Mustangs are some of the smartest, most sure footed and toughest breed of horses you could ride.
They require many hours of time and patience to gain their trust and allow you to have a working partnership, but once you’ve gained their trust they will be a lifelong partner in the trail.
We first started with simple time in the with Cowboy. He eventually became comfortable with us being in with him and even started to take food from our hands.
We were stuck at the feeding out of our hand stage for weeks, before he eventually allowed the fists touch on his nose. Although brief, it made a lasting impression on us both.
The feelings surging through your body as you have your first touch are unexplainable. The ribs of emotions from touching a once wild animal born and raised on the mountain is amazing.
The light brief touches when in for another few weeks before my wife eventually got him to allow her to touch his neck. Another amazing accomplishment for both horse and trainer.
We stalled at this stage for months. Even roping him and teaching him to lead, but still not allowing more that a quick touch to the nose or neck.
We finally had to get help from a good friend and horse trainer Mike. He used his well trained pickup horse to rope Cowboy and pet him all over while safely atop of his horse.
This was the breakthrough we needed! After that one evening he then allowed us to slowly work further down his body each day. Within a week we were touching his entire body and even allowed us to trim his front feet.
From there we worked on lunging, more petting, grooming and sacking out with feed backs and saddle pads.
Once he showed us that he was ready for the saddle, we saddled him up for the first time. He took it really well and only had one minor blowup.
We then saddled him 3-4 more times. Each time doing something new such as adding weight to the stirrups and working on backing up.
On the 4th time being saddled, I added pack saddles with two empty five gallon buckets. He lunged fine with the added weight and pressure.
From there we added about 20lbs of rocks to each bucket on each side. The sound they made when we lunged him caused him to blowup briefly again. Although it was shorter that the first blowup it indeed reminded us to take things slow with a wild horse.
After he calmed down I decided to throw a leg over the saddle. He took it so well, that we decided to backup and disengage the hind quarters. Passing that with flying colors, I asked him to go forward.
As you can see in the video, he did amazing for his first ride with no really problems or rodeo. This does not mean he is ready and broke to go ride all the time, but it is a step direction.
We will continue to ride him and put miles on him. I am sure there will be issues that arise including spooking and possibly even bucking as we are still not out of the woods for that.
We hope you enjoyed this video of us adopting a wild mustang and training him. We are not professional horse trainers, but simply enjoy training our horses and have a passion for the question world.
Update: • Wild BLM Mustang Updat...