Mustangs in Las Vegas? Local competes in BLM wild horse show
Five-year-old Raya snorted and whinnied with excitement when Heidi Brown grabbed her halter. Like a dog who sees his owner grabbing a leash before a walk, the horse knew it was time to trot out of her stall underneath the South Point hotel-casino before competition.
Raya has not been Brown’s show horse for long — or anyone else’s, for that matter. Barely six months ago, the horse was an untamed mustang awaiting adoption.
Brown, a Las Vegas resident, is one of about 40 competitors in the Mustang Challenge, a three-day competition at South Point Arena. Organizers partner with the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program to show off the skills of newly trained mustangs.
Brown said she’s been around horses since her childhood in Utah. She first started working with mustangs in 2019 as a volunteer and became hooked enough to adopt her own to train in her backyard.
“It was incredible to see the sensitivity and intelligence of mustangs. A lot of horses are really intelligent, but it was incredible to see the difference in a mustang. I couldn’t leave it alone,” she said.
Brown adopted Raya, a bay pinto, in December from a holding facility in Delta, Utah, where the horse had been for about two years. BLM rounded up Raya in the Cedar Mountain Herd Management Area, a BLM-run region about 45 miles west of Salt Lake City where the federal government monitors wild horses.
Early “gentling” — training a wild horse through positive reinforcement and trust exercises — focused on developing a relationship with the animal. Once they are comfortable being touched, getting a halter on and being led, trainers can move on to saddle blankets, saddles and riding.
“I do a lot of positive reinforcement for her, and that has helped her a lot with being brave in a lot of scarier situations,” she said.
Brown has another mustang, a 7-year-old sorrel, at her home in the northern Las Vegas Valley. She said training the horses can be challenging because of limited space in her backyard, but she can walk the horses to two arenas in the area.
“If I get on a barrel, they both come over and try to bump the other one out of the way so that I can get on them,” she said. “I love engaging with them in a playful way that makes them want to participate.”
On Friday morning, Brown and her no-longer-wild horse – whose show name is Raya’s Dream – navigated through a series of obstacles designed to replicate riding on a trail.
With Raya still wary of crowds, announcers asked the crowd to hold their applause while she navigated the obstacles. Brown and Raya shuffled sideways over branches, pausing stubbornly at some points and confidently crossing obstacles that challenged other mustangs at other points.
Brown threw her hands up triumphantly when she and Raya exited the main arena.
American mustangs in show
Matthew Monroe, executive director of the Mustang Challenge, said the competition was meant to introduce the public to the abilities of mustangs — seen by some in the horse community as less valuable because of a lack of pedigree — in a famous equestrian arena.
“People kind of stumble on what we’re doing and get to see American mustangs,” he said, sitting near a crowd of more than 100 spectators during Friday morning’s trail class event.
Horses in the competition have, at most, nine months of training. To be eligible, they must have been adopted after Oct. 1. Exhibitors must have previous show experience.
During the competition, the rider and their mustang participate in three preliminary classes: trail, reining pattern and ranch riding. Each class is meant to showcase different skills for the horses and riders.
The top 10 highest scoring competitors from the three classes will compete in the championship finals at 6 p.m. Saturday for the $50,000 grand prize. The remainder of the $125,000 purse goes to placing finalists and the top scores in each preliminary class.
Finalists have a bit more freedom to show off what they have accomplished with their mustang. First, they participate in a compulsory class to display their precision skills. Then, finalists have a three-minute freestyle that can include props and music. The inaugural winner in last year’s competition was ridden by a participant dressed as Capt. Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
After the competition, some mustang trainers will sell their newly trained show horses to people looking for a work, show or companion horse. But other exhibitors grow attached to their mustangs and keep them as their own show horses, Monroe said.
That might be the case for Brown. While she has trained and found a new home for one other mustang and adopted another for herself, Raya may stay with the Brown family.
“Going into it, I never really know until I get the horse, but she might be the one that I’m like, ‘I can’t let her go,’” Brown said.
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.