Pictures from Friday night's mustang Magic Competition:
Rachel and Big Mac practicing before the show. Big Mac has definitely progressed since the yearling challenge !
During the routine.
Personally I love the hair.
Some pictures of one of the adult competitors, J Dubb and his horse Funky Gold Medina
Fort Worth Stock Show Welcomes Mustang Magic - Lucky 13 Mustangs to be trained for January competition
The world-renowned Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo will open its arenas to one of the most unconventional competitions in its more than 113-year history as it welcomes Mustang Magic January 23 and 24.
Mustang Magic, developed from the highly successful Extreme Mustang Makeover competitions, will debut at the Stock Show and feature 13 trainers from across the country that have already shown their mettle as mustang trainers. The trainers are as unique as the horses they are training with stories ranging from an Arizona beauty queen to a former inmate who changed his life in the course of training mustangs.
Produced by the Mustang Heritage Foundation (MHF) in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Mustang Magic will feature Chase Dodd of Soddy Daisy, Tenn., Jonathan "J-Dub" Weisiger of Fort Worth, Cindy Branham of Auburn, Kan., Bill Lopez of Norman, Okla., Weldon Hawley of Vernon, Tex., Suzanne Myers, PhD, of Port Matilda, Penn., Wylene Wilson of Queen Creek, Ariz., Dave Schaffner of Lampasas, Tex., Roeliff Annon, La Villita, NM, Ken Schwab of Hutto, Tex., Joe Misner of Johnson Valley, Calif., Chad Kelley of Monett, MO., and Lonnie Aragon, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Trainers drew for their horses during the 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover September 19 when the wild horse band was released during the Mission 007: Yearling Edition evening finals. Trainers will train the mustangs until the competition January 23.
"It was incredible to see these horses enter the arena and see how great they looked.," said MHF Executive Director Patti Colbert, "There was such a great variety of color, but otherwise, they were pretty uniform in size and type. The trainers were really looking at the way the animal noticed its surroundings, how it responded to the crowd and how it moved."
Mustangs will be judged on body conditioning and handling, with trainers executing a freestyle routine, oftentimes including shooting, roping, jumping and other feats.
All horses in Mustang Magic competition will be available for adoption January 24.
About the Mustang Heritage Foundation
The mission of the Mustang Heritage Foundation and the goal of the Extreme Mustang Makeover are to increase the adoption of mustangs across the country. The Mustang Heritage Foundation created the Extreme Mustang Makeover event to showcase the recognized value of mustangs through a national training competition. For more information go to mustangheritagefoundation.org.
About the Fort Worth Stock Show
From a one-day affair with a few head of cattle tethered under ice-laden shade trees, the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show has grown into a three-week extravaganza with international appeal for exhibitors and visitors alike. More than 899,000 visitors packed into the Will Rogers Complex in 2008 for the 112th Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show. The legendary 24-day event will return in 2009 running from January 16 through February 8. For more information go to fwssr.com.
About the Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is responsible for managing 258 million acres of public lands, located mostly in the West. Wild horses and burros roaming public rangelands are managed in a manner consistent with BLM's overall multiple-use mission, as set forth in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. For more information, visit wildhorseandburro.blm.gov or call 866-4MUSTANGS.
