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TREMONTON — From the round pen in his backyard, Roger Burnhope helps once-wild Mustangs get used to people.
Burnhope is one of a small number of trainers who work with the rescued horses in Utah, many more do the same across the Western U.S. The horses are taken from the range and domesticated for adoption.
About 70,000 horses are estimated to be on the range in the western states while the range can sustain 27,000, Burnhope explained.
"The more horses that we get adopted out, the less taxpayer dollars are spent on these horses to take care of them on the range," he said.
On the Cedar Mountain range in Tooele County, workers with The Bureau of Land Management deliver water to the herd, sometimes daily. In 2016 alone, they hauled approximately 81,000 gallons to the area.
"Our numbers are extremely high," BLM public affairs specialist Lisa Reid explained. "The Cedar Mountain Herd Management area should have ideally about 270 horses. We currently have about 700 here."
Burnhope spent much of July working with a 2-year-old mustang named Ty, who was already set to be adopted by West Haven resident Cis Jensen. The lifelong horse enthusiast already has two animals that were rescued from the range; a burro named Rosey and a horse named Reno.
"Mustangs are different," Jensen said. "They're nonresistant, trainable, and they're sweet and loving, and they can get their feelings hurt."
Before Ty, there was Bering, a horse Burnhope trained as part of a 100-day challenge, before auctioning him off at an event in Reno, Nevada. Bering's new owner, Michael Kotowski of La Grange, California, said the mustangs are every bit as dependable as domesticated horses.
"They're durable, they're calm, they're handy and they can go all day," Kotowski said, adding that the horses aren't the only ones getting rescued. "When you have a bad day and the world just isn't right, when you get on a horse and you go out for a couple of hours, your mind's a lot different when you get home."
The difficult part of training the horses, Burhope admits, is seeing them go.
"You do get attached to them," he said. "But I try not to because I know that the job is sending them off to new homes and getting them to a good home to live in."
Trainers like Burnhope are supported through the Mustang Heritage Foundation, which is in turn funded through a BLM incentive program. Unfortunately, the money has run out, at least for this fiscal year.
"We are in hopes that it will come back online the first of the year," Reid said. "However, we have no idea what our budget is going to be. The proposed budget now is proposed to cut our funding by $10 million. That has huge impacts."
Burnhope, who makes very little from the training the horses, says he hopes he can continue to do so.
"The future doesn't look real good if we can't do something with them," he said. "If you can't control the herds, they're going to kill themselves off."
A congressional committee recently gave their approval for a measure that according to mustang advocates, could allow for the sale and slaughter of the animals to better control the population. A BLM spokesman points out that the provision has not passed through Congress yet and that they will continue to gather the horses with the intent to get them adopted into new homes.
