The Touch of a Mustang

04/16/2025

You should listen!

And if you are looking for an opportunity to embrace the teaching and healing power of of horses, Justin Dunn Mustang Horsemanship has a good one coming up that I have no doubt will be incredible.

The Touch of a Mustang · Episode

02/10/2025

Loss is hard, but often what’s needed for your life to move forward.

01/30/2025

Another great episode talking about amazing people doing incredible things... with Mustangs of course with Mustang Recovery Challenge

In this episode, we sit down with the team behind The Mustang Recovery Challenge, a transformative nonprofit that blends substance use prevention and mental ...

01/25/2025

They will change your life for the better...if you let them

The circumstances are different, but the story is the same—Mustangs entering lives just when they are needed, transforming worlds. I’ve heard the stories man...

01/22/2025

If you are close… you should go!

Cowboy Gala Dinner - Mustang Recovery Challenge Benefit March 21, 2025. Dinner at 7pm, doors open at 6pm. Snake River Event Center.
Keynote Speaker - Amberley Snyder.

Amberley is the Star of the Netflix Film “Walk Ride Rodeo,” based on her life; she is a successful Author, Motivational Speaker, “Yellowstone” Guest Star, Social Influencer, and Professional Barrel Racer.
Originally from Southern California, Amberley knows the value of hard work and was born to ride. She began riding horses and competing at a young age. On January 10, 2010, a life-changing incident occurred, leaving Amberley paralyzed from the waist down. However, that did not stop Amberley. Facing many challenges and adversity, she fought her way back. Amberley holds a Master’s in School Counseling from Utah State University and a Bachelor’s in Agriculture Education.
As the Founder and President of Amberley Snyder Freedom Foundation, Amberley’s passion is to encourage, educate, and support youth and young adults with special needs and disabilities to create growth and independence.

https://tetonhorseexperience.com/cowboy-gala-dinner

01/18/2025

01/14/2025

Coming soon…

12/30/2024

https://youtu.be/4n5g_UxWhDU

There are alternatives to the traditional methods of working through your challenges, if the traditional methods aren't working for you!Support Mustangs and ...

12/17/2024

12/16/2024

I’ve been having some incredible conversations.

One about actually liking yourself, enjoying your own presence in this world.

There was a time I didn’t much like myself. Sometimes I fall back into it.

But when you can say, I like who I am—even with my flaws, weaknesses, and the annoying things you do…

Well that’s a pretty good feeling!

Be on the lookout for some great conversations coming up on the podcast🔥

12/12/2024

This is a much needed change in the Mustang world!!!🙌🏼

We Just Can’t Do It Anymore😔

~The evolution of wild mustang competitions~

A hundred wild mustangs in a 100 days with 100 trainers.

It was a brilliant idea🧐. Innovative, creative, exciting and challenging. Plus, the added bonus of showing the world just how trainable and amazing the American Mustang is.
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And it was amazing. It worked great for about the first 10 or so years. See back in the beginning you were a huge success if you got your horse around the courses. They were not too complicated. You could win your freestyle if you carried a tarp around and taught them to lay down.

Then the trainers got better.

The competitions got harder 😳and what we expected of the horses got to be monumental. In order to stay competitive you had to work your horse every.single.day. A lot of top trainers worked their horses all day. I know of some who didn’t take outside horses when they did the makeover so they could just concentrate on that one makeover horse.

🏆Winning was everything and we lost sight of the goal.

Horses were auctioned off who were dangerous but promised to be “solid, broke horse for anyone”. Some ended up in kill pens, some went from home to home to home. We lost sight of the why. The why we are doing this in the first place.

When horses are trained to win at a freestyle, many essential pieces are missing for a good transition to domestic life and a new home. They still need those holes filled.

A lot of wonderful trainers 🤠did all they could to encourage buyers to keep the horse in training and give them more time before taking them home. Many tried buying their horse back to keep training and have a say in placing them in the right home. This can be quite costly and let’s face it, mustang trainers aren’t exactly bringing in tons of money 💰training mustangs.

Good trainers got burnt out🥵. Good trainers heart’s 💔couldn’t take the grind and what was necessary to be competitive. Made no sense to put all that money into getting to the show if you couldn’t at least be competitive. Most do not have the bank accounts to be purely philanthropic yet got shamed by the public to simply want to survive financially.

A change was needed.

🥳A change is here.

The powers that be have taken notice. The new competitions offer more time ⏱. One of the reasons I have always loved the Magic. It gave 120 days rather than just 100 and those extra 20 days were huge.

But it still isn’t enough for most mustangs.

That is only enough time for a select few who can handle the stress of rapid training. Most mustangs are not like that and even then you are asking too much. They are generous and forgiving creatures, but it is too much 😞.

We are headed to the time of the majority of the competitions offering from 6mths to almost a year. This is incredible 🤩and the essential evolution of the mustang competition. It is more in-line with the rest of the equestrian show world as well. Check out what Mustang Heritage Foundation and Mustang Champions are doing breaking new ground and making huge changes.

These competitions are also allowing trainers the option to select the homes the mustangs they train go to. This helps the trainer as well as gives the mustang the best possible chance to not change homes or end up at a kill pen somewhere. That level of training, time invested, money invested and control of the person who knows the horse best (the trainer) helps push everything towards the best possible outcome for the horse.🐴

There is this domestic horse formula meme floating around FB right now:
📍Takes 1 year to get them broke
📍Takes 2 years to train one to a discipline
📍3-5yrs to season one
📍10yrs to truly finish one

Expecting wild mustangs to rise to a different time line is unfair and breeds for some rather unsavory 😬practices to result.
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We feel it takes 1-2yrs to get them even domesticated, then they can truly START on the timeline above. Sometimes they can do it concurrently.

We expect too much of them and then throw them away 🗑when they don’t meet that accredited timeline.

They deserve better from us. Let's treat them at least the same as we do domestic horses.

Give them time.

I recently pulled Sandia from the Mustang Magic - Ft Worth 2025 competition. She is a lovely mare but was not handling the stress of this timeline well. Her last video and why we pulled her from the competition was just posted to our YouTube channel.
Link in the comments.

Edited to add: To all those new to us. Isidro doesn’t do any of our social media. It’s me, the other half of IEH - Amber 🙂 though we do share sentiments and point of views on what’s posted here.

12/09/2024

Happiness is an inside job. It doesn’t occur because everything plays out just as we hope in life.

Real happiness occurs when we determine to see the best in life and our situation, even as we continue to improve ourselves and the people and things around us.🙌🏼