Wild horses
See wild horses racing across a broad, fenceless basin, and your pulse will quicken. A blur of motion in many colors: black to gray, brown to buckskin, solid, spotted, pinto painted. Colorado’s wild horses are few and fiercely managed. And strictly speaking, they are feral horses, descended from domesticated stock — the first Spanish herds brought to the Americas centuries ago.
Today’s mustangs are fast, sure-footed and forever-running into the distance. An act of Congress in 1971 kept them from completely disappearing, declaring that “wild free-roaming horses and burros” were “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Today, fifteen-hundred roam Colorado, where Bureau of Land Management crews use helicopters, birth-control darts and roundups to keep population numbers down. Controversy surrounds these tactics, but you can still find wild horses at places like Sand Wash Basin west of Craig, their long manes tangled, running like the wind.
About Colorado Postcards
Colorado Postcards are snapshots of our colorful state in sound. They give brief insights into our people and places, our flora and fauna, and our past and present, from every corner of Colorado. See more postcards.
