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"The Boys on Pick-up Day" 8 by 10 inch watercolor by LindaLMartin Artist |
What is the Mustang Makeover?
This is an event put together by the Mustang Heritage Foundation. By matching up trainers with older Mustangs, to handle them, compete upon them and then present them for adoption. The idea is that this preliminary training will make the mustang easier to adjust to domestic life and provide a higher chance for successful placement and adoption for the horses.
Mustangs for the chosen for the Makeover must be of a simular type and size and can only be chestnut, bay, or black. These are the most freqent colors among wild horses and the most difficult to find adopters for.
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| Madeleine's Boy at the Holiding Pen at the Paul's Valley Adoption Center |
Madeleine LeClerc and Robert Carlson are two Makeover trainers. They each have been assigned a horse through a random electronic drawing system. They will train and condition these mustangs from their completely wild state to competition in 100 Days. The Final test for these trainers and Mustangs will be on June 10th and 11th .
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| Robert's Horse The First Day At home in Texas |
All horses in this makeover will be available for adoption on June 12th. Once the horses are adopted the trainers can also offer additional training for both the adoptive family and the horse. Madeleine and Robert picked up their Mustangs at the Paul’s Valley Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Center in Oklahoma the second week of March.
To read more about the Fort Collins Mustang Makeover here is their web information: http://www.extrememustangmakeover.com/emmcolorado.php There are also links to requirements for adoption, trainer qualifications and competition rules. There are more Mustang Makeovers to come this year and of course the Supreme Makeover later in the year.
Special Thanks to Lightning Bug Creek Photography for the reference images and updates on the training.
Good going there Linda, it is very encouraging to see that you are keeping the images coming. I liked Madeleine LeClerc very much during the last MakeOver here in Ft. Collins. She is a very elegant rider and superlight it seems. This way all the horses get a chance to have their story documented and illustrated.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gabriele, I've been following your photo updates too. Its very exciting and everyone is saying so many good things about your training methods. Its really unexpected when I started this process a year ago I really didnt know mucha bout the Mustang makeovers Now the more I learn the more I want to be involved.
ReplyDeleteThat is really interesting Linda. I didn't know bays, chestnuts and blacks were hard to adopt out at all!
ReplyDeleteI liked how you placed the two together in this image. Continue on your wonderful journey painting these horses! You ROCK!
ReplyDeletePurple Pony, it seems that most people who want to adopt choose a flashy horses like a pinto, or palamino or a horse with a lot of white. Since there are far more bays, black/browns, and sorrel/chestnuts with out flashy color they are often over looked.
ReplyDeleteIt also goes according to region as well. In some places on the east coast the more elegant horses are the ones with the clear coats, however, they still have to over come the "mutt horse" sterio type.
Another thing that must be over come is the branding. The longer a horse is in the direct care of the BLM The more brands the horse receives. This grafitti, while important to the care and management of the horse while in BLM possession also adds to the undesireable persona of the Mustang where a standard of display is upheld. Lastly there is a myth that Mustangs of a certain age cannot be trained to safely interact with people. The good thing about the Mustang Makeover is that it proves that myth wrong.
So by taking these clear color horses and putting some time in them then training the new owers, the undesireable becomes the desired. Its just one more amazing step in getting all those surplus horses out of the holding pens and into real homes where they are valued.
Thank you so much for your encouragement Sheri! Its so good to see your smiling face. =0)
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