Rutgers University, Mustangs and You

For the past three years The Rutgers Young Horse Teaching and Research program has adopted mustangs from the BLM and brought them to Cook Campus at Rutgers where they've been tamed and trained for about 9 months and then sold in the May to horse owners for the annual horse auction.


This was the first year however where only mustangs were used for the Young Horse Teaching and Research Program. In the past, Dr. Sarah Ralston ( head of the program) used draft-cross yearlings. The yearling program did so well at finding great homes for these horses, that Dr. Ralston decided to conquer one of the growing horse problems in the U.S. ----->Mustangs

Dr. Ralstons goal was to find good homes for these horses as well as break down the myth that mustangs were just as good if not better horses than the draft cross horses. There has been many misconceptions and rumors that have spread across the country about mustangs, mainly bad and Ralstons goal was to show the world that mustangs can be tamed and used for many horse activities and even compete.

I have been part of The Young Horse Teaching and Research Program now for nearly 3 years. I started the program working with a draft cross yearling filly called Glinda the Good Witch and continued working with her when she didn't sell at the Spring Auction in 2009. After working with her for another semester she sold at the Auction in 2010.



With Glinda in the Fall of 2009 Glinda munching on some grass



Staying on for another year with the program was probably the year the changed my life. Last year was the year that Dr. Ralston decided to use only mustangs for the program. There began my journey with the filly Sierra. Check out my next blog post to find out more out my journey with training Sierra.

For more information about the Young Horse Program at Rutgers : http://rci.rutgers.edu/~ruhorse/index.html