able, much less profitable, means of capture.
Another technique required at least two riders.
“Sometimes a pair of mustangers would waylay
wild horses at a water hole,” Gard wrote. “One
would ride close to the drinking place while his
partner concealed himself near the trail a mile
or more away. After the mustangs had drunk
their fill, the first man would come out and start
chasing them at full speed. Because of the water
they had just drunk, they would be unable to run
as fast as usual. As they came to the place where
the second rider was concealed, he would rush
out after them, thus causing them to change their
course. In the ensuing confusion, the men might
be able to rope a choice mustang or two.”
JUNE 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
By far the most effective method of gathering
multiple wild horses utilized pens or corrals —
often covered with brush for camouflage — and
several riders who guided the leery animals into
the gate. Fixed to the gates on either side were
wings of fencing — sometimes up to a half-mile
in length — which funneled the horses toward
the gate. Once inside the corral, the mustangers
closed the gate and draped a blanket over it to
discourage the animals from trying to exit the way
30
they entered.
By the 1950s the wild mustang’s numbers
had dropped drastically due to draconian control measures such as hunting from the air and
poisoning. Such abuse, in 1959, finally led to the
nation's first wild, free-roaming horse protection
law, a statute known as the “Wild Horse Annie
Act.” As a result, these feral horses (in February
2010 an estimated 33,700 of them) still range
across parts of the American West, mainly in
Nevada, but also in areas of Wyoming, Montana,
Utah and Oregon.
These agile, free-spirited ponies would undoubtedly be a sight to behold, their combined
hoof-falls raising terrestrial thunder as they bound
as one over the rugged geography of the West.
SOURCES:
• City of Weatherford website
• www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/horses-introduction
• Rawhide Texas, by Wayne Gard (1965) University of Oklahoma Press
• The Cast Iron Forest, by Richard V. Francaviglia
(2000) University of Texas Press
• Comanche Midnight, by Stephen Harrigan
(1995) University of Texas Press