Spanish Mustang - History

History

The Colonial Spanish Horse developed from animals of various breeds and types first brought from the Iberian peninsula to the Caribbean within the first 30 years of Conquest of the New World. The Spanish Mustang is a descendant of the Spanish horses brought from Cuba, Hispanola, and other islands during the conquest and establishment of the Spanish colony of New Spain in what today is Mexico. They are a direct remnant of the horses of a type that is mostly or wholly extinct now in Spain As the conquest of Mexico progressed during the 16th century, horse herds spread north and crossed the Rio Grande. Over the next one hundred years, horses in the Americas were stolen and traded by the Apache, Comanche, and later the Utes and Shoshoni to various tribes across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Lewis and Clark received horses, later claimed to be Spanish Mustangs, from the Shoshoni, and said they owed much of the success of their expedition to the horses.

Spanish Mustang developed as a distinct type during the 17th and 18th centuries, prior to the arrival of English-speaking American settlers on the Great Plains. By the late 19th century, the advance of farming onto the Great Plains threatened the existence of the Spanish Mustang, as this horse was deemed too small to be useful for the farm work. Both farmers and ranchers introduced taller and heavier horses into wild herds to create a different type of animal more suitable to the immediate needs of settlers. Thus various draft horse breeds, Morgans, Thoroughbreds, and other animals were crossed into the mustang herds.

On the brink of extinction in the early part of this century, the salvation of the original Spanish type can be attributed primarily, but not exclusively, to Ferdinand L. Brislawn and his brother Robert E. Brislawn of Oshoto, Wyoming, who founded the Spanish Mustang Registry, Inc. in 1957. Two full brothers, Buckshot and Ute, were his first foundation stallions, sired by a buckskin stallion named Monty and out of Ute Reservation blood on the dam's side. Monty, captured in 1927 in Utah, escaped back to the wild in 1944, taking his mares with him. He was never recaptured.