Height: 13 – 15 hands
Color: Any
Conformation: Because of it’s
ancestry (the original Spanish stock
was progressively diluted as a wide
variety of settlers’ horses joined
and interbred with the wild herds)
there is a good deal of variation.
The best are sturdily built with
strong, clean limbs and feet.
Taken from
Horse Breeds
& Horse Care
By Judith Draper
www.lanadipati.republika.pl
Fun Facts:
The term mustang probably
comes from the Spanish word
mesteno, from mesta,
meaning an association of
grazers or stock raisers. In
13th-century Spain, mestas
were organizations of sheep
owners. Stray sheep were
called mestenos, meaning
“belonging to the mesta”.
Photo Credit: Jaime Jackson
Some etymologists think that
mustang comes from the word mestengo,
later a form of mostrenco from the verb mostrar, to show or exhibit.
Stray sheep, sometimes referred to as mostrencos were shown to the
public to give the owner a chance to claim them. But according to the
wild horse authority J. Frank Dobie, English-speaking people in the
American south-west did not know the word mostrenco. Dobie dates
the introduction of the term Mustang to the early 19th-century.
Texas Outdoors & Farm Magazine November 2012
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