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SMR
Importance of Type
Seeking Range
Standard Examiner(with pics)
Herald Journal(with pics)
Tribune
?????? Good article though if someone knows where it came from please let me know
Horse Illustrated 1997
NW Rider September 1997
 

Josie Brislawn, SMR

Emmett     Brislawn, Josie Brislawn and Bob Holbrook took off in April to go meet Doc Stabler, John Adams and Bart
Sutherl and i n Ogden, Utah. We stayed at a RV campground. Ron Roubidoux came there to pick us up and take us to his place.
   Monday morning looked at two dun fillies, a dun roan filly, one grulla filly and one older grulla mare. She reminded you of Mexicali Rose (SMR 29) and Little Mex (SMR 120). These were good little horses. We were all morning looking at that bunch.    Behind the barn in a sturdy corral was Sulphur's Chance, a beautiful dun stallion. I thought he looked more like Doby (SMR 406). Boy, was he an eye catcher. He did not know what to do about us humans standing around and looking at or bothering him. Sulphur's Chance was the typiest of the horses we saw.
     We broke for lunch then went back to Ron's and looked at all of his horses again.
     Tuesday we went southwest of Salt Lake City and looked at more horses.    There were a couple of duns and a bunch of grullas. We stayed at that place most of the day looking at these horses.
  One of these days, we should all try to make a round-up so we could get a look at all of the horses that are running out on Mountain Home Range. Looking at this from a future thing for SMR, it would be new bloodlines to cross onto and a new gene pool.
  For 1994, and this century, these horses have kept themselves pretty isolated from domestic horses. We all should be glad to have found this many horses in the wild that are Spanish Mustangs.

Thanks to Ron Roubidoux for all the great hospitality he gave us in showing us around to each different place where we inspected the horses. We all really enjoyed ourselves.
 

The importance of Type in Spanish Mustangs

 D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD

"Type" is a difficult concept to define, but is an absolutely vital one when talking about breeds of livestock. One defnition of type is the conformational peculiarities that separate one breed from another. It is safe to add that "type" almost represents the ideal mental picture of a breed. Type is therefore central to a breed's character and identity, and it is what sets the different breeds apart one from another. Quarter Horses have a "type"; Spanish Mustangs a different "type". Even closely related breeds, such as the Peruvian Paso and the Spanish Mustang, have subtle differences in type that help distinguish one from the other.

T~he Spanish Mustang comes to us today as an interesting amalgam of feral, rancher, Indian, Mission, and Mexican strains. One result of this broad base is that there are different types within the Spanish Mustang breed. These are described in breed literature as a heavy and a lighter type, with many intermediates. Within the extremes in the breed there are some consistent conformational traits that set Spanish Mustangs off from other horses, and these conformational traits are essential to the typiness of the Spanish Mustang. Horses that exhibit all of the conformational peculiarities of the breed are said to be "typier" than those that have fewer.

Breeders of any breed need to be aware of type and what it is. Within every breed some individuals are going to be born that are "off type". The fate of these individuals has an important impact on the fate of the breed. If these animals are heralded and used widely as breeding stock, the breed's type will slowly erode until the original breed is unrecognizable. If, on the other hand, "off type" individuals are culled from breeding, then the original type can be preserved.

Modern horse breeds in America can give good lessons in the importance of type, and the ability of breeders to change type. One example is the Morgan horse. The original Morgan was a dual purpose farm chunk, valued for its durability and for its strength. Fashion has changed some strains of Morgan away from the original model into more of a refined show horse. Some of this was done by crossbreeding, but much of it was done by selecting away from the original type. This has been done to the extent that the original type is now quite rare, and its breeders concerned about its extinction. ....

Draft breeds, such as the American Belgian and Clydesdale, are other good examples of the ability of type to change. Originally these were massive, stocky heavy horses with great bulk. They were used for agricultural work (when they were not being used to "breed up" Spanish Mustangs!). The modern use for these is usually for parade use, and this has favored a much leggier, refined type. The original type is rare. So which one is the "real" breed - the modern type or the original? This is an important question in breed conservation, and has no easy answer.

Type in beef cattle breeds has seen even larger changes than has that in horse breeds - and swine probaby have changed type the most of any species of livestock. All of this has helped the breeds in question to adapt to current demands, although in the process the result has been that all breeds tend to start looking very alike. Without the distinctiveness of breeds there is less chance for any breed to really fit a specialized
 
 

Group seeks Range for Mustangs.

associated press

ST GEORGE-A collection of living history is trying to survive in a remote area of pinyon and juniper pines along the Mountain home range of western Utah.
    A heerd of wild Spanish Mustangs, called the sulphur herd, are decendants of horses that went along the old Spanish trail. The animals roam about 50 miles west of Millford, and 15 miles south of Garrison.
    "They used to say the old Spanish trail was lined with horses and bones" said Ron Roubidoux who owns 12 Spanish mustangs and is working to protect the sulphur herd.
    Roubidoux and the national mustang association are trying to change the sulphur herds roaming area to the status of national wild horse range. This designation is given to areas that have special features:either the topography or the animals themselves. Currently there are two national ranges, in Colorado and in Montana.
    Some people beleive these horses are nothing more than grub horses useless for anything but meat Roubidoux said.
    On an outing to the range last year Roubidoux found a horse with a lump in his hip. A .38 caliber bullet was pulled out.
    Roubidoux said he called the BLM about another horse to determine if it had been killed by a wild animal, The marks though had suggested it had been killed by a hunter. Recently he found a foal running on three legs because one had been shot. "If people know and apreciate the horses, then this will stop!" Roubidoux said. PArt of the horse range would include a viewing area. June Sewing, president of the national Mustang Association, said the horses would not be corraled. Instead people would watch from a high point with binoculars.

Standar Examiner








 

                                       Monday, May 20, 1996 
 

                        Utah's Herd That Time Forgot Has Mustang Lovers Marveling at the . . .

                              BEAUTY OF THE BEAST

     Rare Spanish mustangs cross a ridge near the Utah-Nevada border. (Eric
     Roderick)

     BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH
     THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
        MOUNTAIN HOME RANGE, Beaver County -- The treasure was
     brought to the California shores of the New World by Spaniards in the 1500s,
     only to be stolen by a Ute Indian chief and a one-legged mountain man in the
     early 1800s.

        Its hiding place deep in the juniper-choked valleys of this remote mountain
     range was overlooked for more than a century.

        Until now.

        A herd of wild Spanish horses here apparently has survived and reproduced
     with little outside influence since its ancestors escaped or were swiped from the
     conquistadors and priests who brought the first horses to the uncharted
     Southwest.

        Researchers believe the so-called Sulphur herd roaming southwestern
     Utah's desolate Mountain Home Range is one of the purest existing gene pools
     of Spanish horses in America. So rare are these mustangs that some equine
     scientists and a growing group of horse enthusiasts are asking the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to
     designate the area 50 miles west of Milford as a National Wild Horse Range and to take steps to protect the
     genetic integrity of the breed.

        ``The horses out there are about the same as they were when they escaped into the mountains more than 100
     years ago,'' says Ron Roubidoux of Mantua. His adopted Sulphur-herd horses recently were accepted by the
     Arizona-based Spanish Mustang Registry. ``It reminds me of that movie, `The Last of the Dogmen,' about the
     Indian tribe that was discovered after being cut off from civilization. It's like time forgot about these horses.''

        Feral horses of the Southwest frequently are considered by many equestrian enthusiasts to be little more than
     buzzard bait. After all, adopting a BLM wild horse costs a mere $125 and most horse-registry organizations that
     certify the desirable traits and characteristics of a particular breed do not recognize mustangs, much less advertise
     their stud fees.

        Wild horses sometimes are mangy-looking critters, with in-bred birth defects like blindness or misshapen
     bodies. Some give new meaning to the word ornery. Goes one cowboy maxim: ``They'll kick you so far it'll take a
     bloodhound six weeks just to find your scent.''

        But horse lovers around the world suddenly are swooning over Utah's Sulphur herd.

        ``I'm getting calls every week from Europe, Japan and all around the United States from people who want to
     get one of these horses,'' says Gus Warr, wild-horse specialist for the BLM's Beaver River Resource Area.
     ``Word is getting out that we've got something very unique out here.''

        For starters, the mustangs that forage in the 143,000 acres of dense pinion and juniper forests covering the
     Mountain Home Range along Utah's southwestern border with Nevada are strikingly attractive. They are generally
     dun in color, from shades of buckskin to a gray-blue mousy hue known as grullo. Many have distinctive dark
     zebra stripes on their front and back legs, and a dark dorsal stripe along the back. Manes and tails are bi-colored,
     framing a lean body with narrow chest, sloping croup and low-set tail.

        When officials of the Spanish Mustang Registry saw photos of the Sulphur horses Roubidoux adopted and
     raises on his northern Utah ranch, the organization voted to change its bylaws to allow an immediate on-site
     inspection, rather than its 40-year tradition of only certifying horses brought to a national show.

        ``Many of the Sulphur horses were the best [Spanish-origin horses] you would find anywhere in the country,''
     the group wrote in a report after inspecting 20 horses adopted by Utahns from BLM's Sulphur herd. ``The
     Sulphur-herd area opens up a new and very promising gene pool.''

        There are only four wild-horse herds in the United States that have possible Spanish origins and all are
     managed by the BLM: the Sulphur herd in Utah, Pryor Mountain herd in Montana, Cerbat/Marble Canyon herd
     in Arizona and the Kiger herd in Oregon. Made famous by national publicity, Kiger horses have been in strong
     demand for the past decade, with offspring commanding hefty price tags. At the BLM's most recent Kiger-horse
     adoption in Oregon, 700 people vied for 129 available horses.

        But researchers suspect Utah's Sulphur herd may be the most genuine Spanish-origin horses in the country.

        ``The Sulphur herd in general appears to have strong Spanish links,'' wrote E. Gus Cothran, director of the
     Equine Blood Typing Research Laboratory at the University of Kentucky, in a BLM report after testing blood
     samples from the herd. ``The Kiger horses would not seem to be closely related to the Sulphur horses.''

        Added Virginia Tech veterinary genetics Professor D. Phillip Sponenberg, technical director for the American
     Livestock Breeds Conservancy: ``The Spanish type is the only type currently in the wild herds that would be
     impossible to re-create once lost. To fail to manage these [Sulphur-herd horses] for conservation will mean the
     eventual extinction of this type.''

        Just how this herd of an estimated 320 mustangs survived genetically intact for so long is unclear.

        ``This landscape is very rugged and so far removed from human habitation that these horses have been isolated
     for a long time,'' says Warr as his BLM four-wheel-drive truck rattles down one of the rocky dirt roads
     crisscrossing the Sulphur herd range. ``These horses are hard to catch out here because they retreat into the trees.
     They have generally been left alone and the herd was big enough to prevent inbreeding.''

        Roubidoux, a state fish-hatchery manager and Western-history buff, speculates that the Sulphur herd's
     beginnings date back to the Old Spanish Trail, a late-1700s and early 1800s trade route that connected Los
     Angeles to Santa Fe, N.M. Its route passed through southwestern Utah near the Mountain Home Range.
     Historical records show that the Spanish Trail frequently was used to drive thousands of horses -- stolen or legally
     acquired -- from Southern California and Mexico into the settlements of the Southwest and Intermountain West.

        In 1840, Ute Chief Wakara and fur trapper Thomas ``Peg-Leg'' Smith directed one of the most daring raids,
     thieving an estimated 1,200 saddle horses from the Mission of San Luis Obispo, then driving the horses across the
     desert into Utah.

        ``Maybe I've got a good imagination, but it's not hard to figure that many of those stolen horses escaped into
     the mountains of southwestern Utah to become what we now know as Spanish mustangs,'' says Roubidoux, who
     has produced a video of the Sulphur herd titled ``Wakara's Gold.'' ``The horses out there today are the best
     example of the original Spanish horse.''

        That contention is growing, leading to increasing demand to adopt Sulphur herd horses, which were last
     offered to the public in 1992. Horses are adopted through a lottery system. The BLM has a waiting list of people
     who want to be notified of the next Sulphur adoption, which may occur this summer if drought conditions worsen.
     More than half those on the waiting list are from outside Utah and many are from out of this country.

        ``A lot of those people want to make sealed bids on these horses rather than participate in the lottery,'' Warr
     says. ``Currently, the law does not allow that, but with the popularity of these horses, the BLM may draw up new
     regulations to allow district managers to use their discretion and seek fair-market value.''

        While budget cuts have prevented the BLM from more intensive management of the Sulphur herd -- one of 25
     wild-horse herds in Utah -- Warr is attempting to protect the uniqueness of the Spanish mustangs. Among the
     efforts by the BLM:

        -- Horses that have nonconforming characteristics are being removed from the Sulphur herd to encourage
     propagation of the Spanish type.

        -- Horses from other feral herds are not introduced into the Sulphur herd, to reduce changes of crossbreeding.

        -- Sulphur-herd habitat has been improved with chaining of juniper trees to encourage growth of forage, and
     volunteers from the National Mustang Association in Newcastle, Utah, have helped develop new water sources.

        -- The BLM holds periodic public trail rides to introduce the Sulphur herd to area horse lovers who assist with
     an ongoing inventory. Reservations for the next such trail ride from June 20 to 22 can be made by contacting the
     BLM in Cedar City at 801-586-2401.

        ``We really hope the public will gain an appreciation for this herd and help us police it from any harassment or
     abuse,'' Warr says while watching a Sulphur stallion and his harem of mares race the cloud shadows skittering
     across Mountain Home Peak. ``Some people think wild horses are the vermin of the Earth until they see this
     Sulphur herd. Then they want me to put their name on the adoption waiting list.'

Saving Sulphur Horses

An an isolated area of southwestern Utah called the Mountain Home Range live a herd of very special wild horses. Known as the Sulphur Herd, these beautiful Spanish Mustangs, with their dusty dun coats and striped legs, are living relics of a romantic and exciting past.
    Historians believe/that the Sulphur horses are descendants Of horses that traveled a path once called the Old Spanish Trail, a trade route that connected Los Angeles to Sante Fe, New Mexico, in the 1800s. Legend has it that in its day, the trail was littered with horse bones, as thousands of horses were driven across this route in the several decades it was used by horse traders.
    One of most spectacular horse drives to ever take place on the Old Spanish Trail was led by a Ute Indian named Walkara. Historians believe that Walkara and two mountain men raided missions and rancheros in Central and Southern California, successfully taking more than 1,200 horses into southwestern Utah. Many of these horses escaped into the mountains to become what we now know as Spanish Mustangs.
 
 

    In the early to mid-1900s, most of the Mustangs from the region were captured and killed. But a small herd of Spanish horses survived in the remote Mountain Home Range, where capture was next to impossible. These Spanish Mustangs, which retained the dun characteristics seen in the ancient Sorraia horse, became known as the Sulphur Herd. These beautiful horses still graze on the rugged terrain of pition and juniper that their ancestors foraged on 100 years ago.
    But according to Ron Roubidoux, owner of several adopted Sulphur Mustangs and an advocate for the herd, the Sulphur horse is in great peril. "Young Sulphur horses are being chased down by so-called 'cowboys,' who catch them and then, as a sign of conquest, cut off the tip of one ear," he says. "Horses are also being shot and wounded, or sometimes killed. Some Sulphur horses have even been taken from the range for illegal sale."
    While the herd is protected by laws enforced by the Bureau of Land Management, lack of funds and manpower limit what the agency can do to protect these horses. For this reason, a group of concerned horse lovers is working to make the Mountain Home Range a National Wild Horse-Range. This status would help secure the protection, preservation and perpetuation of the Sulphur horses.
    For more information on the Sulphur Herd, contact the Bureau of Land Management, Gus Warr, Cedar City District Office, 176 East D.L. Sargent Drive, Cedar City, UT 84720.

   JANUARY 17
 

Breed of the Month

 The Sulphur Mustang

 By Erin Gray with Jemily Babcock

    The Mountain Home Range lies at the north end of the Bureau of Land Management's Sulphur Herd Management Area, which is located in Southwest Utah. It is approximately 142,800 acres, and covers the entire Needle Range. The BLM is managing this area specifically for the Spanish type horse. The herd management area gets its name from the Sulphur Springs. There are three sulphur springs in all, North, South and Sulphur Spring. Its hiding place, deep in the juniper-choked valleys of this remote mountain range was overlooked for more than a century.

    A herd of Spanish horses apparently has survived here and reproduced with litfie outside influence since its ancestors escaped or were swiped from the conquistadors and priests who brought the first horses to the uncharted Southwest. The Sulphur horses maintain many characteristics of the Spanish Sorraia, the primitive ancestor of the Iberian horse from the Golden Age of Spain. Authorities believe it was the Sorraia or a Sorraia-Iberian cross that Christopher Columbus first brought to the new world. Later they were crossed with Andalusian chargers.

    The Sulphur horses of Spanish type include: sloping croup, low set tail, deep body, narrow chest, broad forehead, narrow muzzle and hooked ears. Their main colors are linebacked dun, such as buckskin, grullo, dun, blacks, a few browns and chestnuts. The Sulphur horses are known for their strong dun factors such as zebra striping and hash marks on four legs, cobwebbing, sooty face and bridge marking, chest barfing, single or double shoulder patch, sawtooth dorsal rib barring, dorsal stripe and bi-colored main and tail. Sulphur horses carry strong dun factors in both sexes. The mares with dun factor carry the marking on all four legs more than the Kiger mares do.

    In May 1994, members of the Spanish Mustang Registry, one of the oldest mustang registries, came to Utah and inspected 20 Sulphur horses. They accepted seventeen. Of the herds that the BLM is managing as Spanish type horses, the Pryor Mountain herd of Montana and Wyoming, the Kigers of Oregon and the Cerbat horses of Arizona, only the Cerbat and Sulphur horses have been accepted into the Spanish Mustang Registry.

    A few Sulphur horses have been blood typed by Dr. Gus Cothran at the University of Kentucky. Though a complete evaluation has yet to be done, he feels that the Sulphur herd in general appears to have strong Spanishlinks. He is confident that this population will ultimately prove to be one of the more consistently Spanish o[ feral populations so far studied.

    Researchers believe the Sulphur herd roaming south-westem Utah's desolated Mountain Home Range is one of the purist existing gene pools of Spanish horses in America. Horse lovers around the world are swooning over Utah's Sulphur herd. Gus Wart, BLM Wild Horse Specialist for the BLM's Beaver River Resource Area, stated that "I am getting calls from Europe, Japan, and all around the United States from people who want to get one of those horses."
    Sulphur herd horses were last offered to the public in 1996. The BLM has a waiting list of people who want to be notified of the next Sulphur adoption, which may be either in April or May 1998.

    For more information contact: Gus Warr, BLM Wild Horse Specialist, Cedar City District Office, 176 E. D.L. Sargent Dr., Cedar City, Utah 84720. Phone (801) 5862401 or Erin Gray in Mulino (503) 632-7750.

CHARACTERISTICS

'age 32 September 15, 1997  NW Rider