Colorado inmates train wild mustangs to guard the nation’s border’s

*”Wild Horse Inmate program” trains horses that enhances the ”Project Noble Mustang” to Guard the border’s

Colorado inmates train wild mustangs to help guard the nation’s rugged borders
By Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post
01/22/2011

It is, to say the least, an unlikely alliance.

The horses arrive without names or manners. They are taught to behave by Colorado inmates serving time for robbery, burglary and other crimes. The horses are then deployed along the nation’s borders to stop crime — helping catch 500 illegal immigrants in one stretch of the Mexican border alone.
So far, this combination of the untamed and confined has worked well for law enforcement. The horses are well- trained by inmates who learn a trade in the process, and the horses’ unique skills allow Border Patrol agents to visit rugged stretches with few provisions.
The wild horses are prized for their toughness. Rocks? Not a problem. No pastures? Anything green or brown will do. Frozen lakes and rivers? They’ll eat snow.
“The mustangs never had a water trough,” said Dick Graham, patrol agent in charge of the U.S. Border Patrol station in Oroville, Wash., northwest of Spokane. “It shows you how self-sufficient they are.”
As he spoke, Shorty chomped big bites of fresh snow off the ground as a U.S. Border Patrol wrangler saddled him up for a day of work along the U.S.-Canada border.
Mustangs like Shorty were molded by trials. They fended off mountain lions using large hooves or more likely galloped safely away from them on thick- boned, sturdy legs through rocky, cactus-choked ravines infested with rattlesnakes.
The mixed-breed, mangy horses descended from ancestors that escaped from Spanish explorers, U.S. cavalry soldiers, gold miners and ranchers. All Shorty needed to channel generations of wilderness experience to become a valuable Border Patrol mount was some gentle coaxing by horse trainers. That’s where prisoners at Four Mile Correctional Center in Cañon City came in. Lessons in training horses. Four years ago, now-retired Border Patrol supervisor Lee Pinkerton called Colorado prison officials and asked whether the inmates who had been training wild mustangs since 1986 to become working ranch horses could also train them to chase down drug and human smugglers.
Pinkerton’s idea has since evolved into a nationwide program called Project Noble Mustang. At the time, Shorty was still roaming the Western plains.
The Bureau of Land Management rounded up him and dozens of other mustangs from four wild herds in Colorado and from herds across the West for the Border Patrol.
The BLM sent the mustangs to Cañon City, where inmates train them for three to four months, said Katherine Sanguinetti, Colorado prisons spokeswoman. By the time they are done, the horses are considered “green broke.”
The cost of the trained horse is a bargain at $1,100, Graham said.
Colorado inmate Terry Benjamin, 45, spends most of his day at a large corral complex where Colorado Correctional Industries holds 3,000 mustangs. On Thursday afternoon, he pointed out a scar on his forehead and another above his right eye.
“Jughead gave me 11 stitches,” said Benjamin, referring to a strawberry-colored mustang with a massive head huddled with three other mustangs in a nearby corral. “He reared up. He got his butt way up there.”
Benjamin held no ill will toward the horse he continued to train for three months after he was bucked and stomped.
“It wasn’t his fault. He’s a wild horse. He did what horses do,” Benjamin said.
In the year that Benjamin, serving a robbery sentence out of Cañon City, has been training horses, his tolerance for mustang missteps has molded him as much as his horses, said Department of Corrections officer and horse wrangler Cody West.
At home in rugged areas Ramon Gonzales, a city boy from Denver, sat comfortably high atop Silver Bullet, a blue roan with deep blue eyes. He leaned over and patted Silver Bullet on the neck.
“Just getting close enough to touch them can take weeks,” said Gonzales, a convicted burglar from Jefferson County. “They pretty much think we’re going to eat them.”
After Gonzales and other inmates train the horses, they go to the border, where Border Patrol agents train them not to get spooked when they hear gunfire.
The mustang program worked so well along the Canadian border that it was replicated from Texas to California, where agents now use the prison-trained mustangs to catch illegal immigrants every day.
Rafael V. Garza, horse patrol commander for the Border Patrol in the Laredo, Texas, sector, said in the first year of service, his nine mounted agents caught 500 illegal immigrants.
“It’s the intimidation factor,” Garza said.
When they approach a group of drug smugglers sleeping under mesquite trees and one of them bolts, the agents give chase on mustangs, crashing through the brush.
“They know they aren’t going to outrun a horse,” Garza said.
Unlike domestic horses, the mustangs are comfortable in the most inhospitable of terrain. But Garza worried that the mustangs would kick, bite and buck. Instead, they readily follow orders and have proved to be endearing companions, he said.
They do well in hot southwestern deserts and in the frigid north, where they must maneuver through dense pine forests on steep grades along the 49th parallel, Graham said.
Currently about 60 mustangs are in service nationally, and that number is growing. About 27 of them patrol a 308-mile stretch from the Cascade Mountains in Washington to Glacier National Park in Montana.
Using horses is a throwback to the cowboy days when the Border Patrol was first formed, Graham said.
“Mustangs are a little bit of America’s past,” he said.
The mustangs have also proved to be valuable ambassadors for the Border Patrol.
Graham rode Okanogan — a black mustang named after the county where he patrols — at the head of President Barack Obama’s inaugural parade in January 2009.
The same ranchers who forbid Border Patrol agents from driving ATVs that scare livestock on their property eagerly accompany the agents when they visit on horseback. The ranchers have since called Graham to report smuggling.
Keen senses a benefit
The horses have an acute sense of smell. They warn when predators such as grizzly bears are near and detect smugglers.
In a test by San Diego Border Patrol agents, mustangs had keener senses than dogs, DOC officer and horse wrangler West said. They can see, smell or hear a smuggler far sooner than their rider and are stealthier than noisy ATVs.
“If you pay attention to your horse, you can sneak up on (smugglers),” said Oroville patrol wrangler Brandon Perez.
Without the horses, the Border Patrol would rarely be able to visit remote areas of the border like the Pasayten Wilderness Area in northern Washington.
The mustangs are durable and rarely go lame. On one expedition along the Canadian border that lasted 10 days, a group of agents crossed a field where a grove of trees had tumbled over like match sticks, Graham said.
“We were riding in snow up to Shorty’s belly,” he recalled. “He literally crawled over the logs. No problem.”
Long-distance hoofing On a recent chilly morning following a snowstorm, Graham, who stands 6 feet 2 and weighs 230 pounds, mounted Shorty.
Horse and rider led a small caravan of agents, a reporter and photographer up a steep snow-draped slope below Anarchist Mountain a few miles north of Oroville.
The group crossed through a herd of cattle without disturbing them. The mustangs traversed a small stream and zigzagged up a steep hill along a barbed-wire border fence to a bluff overlooking Lake Osoyoos, which extends several miles into Canada.
In the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, politicians were concerned that terrorists might use the less patrolled Canadian border to slip into the U.S. The Border Patrol bolstered its force with hundreds of new agents.
The mustangs have helped make them all the more effective, Graham said. They can cover the vast northern border more swiftly and frequently.
The hill above Lake Osoyoos was slick, but the mustangs steadily trudged upward and then back down without slipping or sliding. The horses covered about 5 miles in three hours.
“We could never do this in a few hours if we were on foot,” Graham said.

U.S. Border Patrol agents Spokane Washington Sector, from left to right, Richard Graham, Patrol Agent in Charge, and wrangler, Josh Bocook, and wrangler, Brandon Perez, ride mustang horses on patrol in Oroville Washington, patrolling the U.S./Canadian border, Thursday morning, January 13th 2011. (Andy Cross | The Denver Post)

Colorado inmate Ramon Gonzales works to train the wild mustang Silver Bullet. “Just getting close enough to touch them can take weeks,” Gonzales said. ( Andy Cross, The Denver Post )

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com

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Tucson Sector Border Patrol Adopts Wild Horses
by Hugh Holub on Oct. 26, 2010, under border issues

Press release from US Customs and Border Protection October 20, 2010

Tucson Sector Border Patrol Adopts Wild Horses
The Noble Mustang Program

TUCSON, Ariz. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection Tucson Sector Border Patrol has adopted 10 horses from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “Wild Horse and Burro Program.” The program works in conjunction with Colorado Correctional Institute’s Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP).

The Border Patrol initiated the Noble Mustang Program in the Spokane Sector in 2007 which purchases mustangs from WHIP. By purchasing horses through this program it eases BLM’s burden of locating suitable homes for these wild mustangs. As part of their inmate rehabilitation program, the Colorado Correctional Institute provides preliminary training for the horses.

Prior to utilizing the Noble Mustang Program, the Tucson Sector purchased horses from vendors across the Nation at double the cost. The Noble Mustang Program is an economical means of increasing Tucson Sector’s Horse Patrol Unit at half the cost. Mustangs are known to be tough, durable horses that have very solid hooves and strong bone structure, which makes them less prone to lameness, and better suited for the rocky mountainous terrain found in Southern Arizona.

WHIP provides mustangs with basic skill sets which Border Patrol agents enhance and build upon. Once they have been trained and have adapted to Border Patrol operations, they will be added to the Tucson Sector’s Horse Patrol Unit. (Photos Available)

The Noble Mustang program has received high recognition and was selected to participate in the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Parade. The Noble Mustang Program was nominated by the Office of Management and Budget for the SAVE (Securing Americans’ Value and Efficiency) Award in 2010.

“The Noble Mustang Program is a win-win situation for all parties involved, including these magnificent animals.” said Chief Patrol Agent Victor M. Manjarrez, Jr. “The Tucson Sector is proud to implement the legacy of these mustangs into the traditions of our Horse Patrol Unit, at a great savings to the taxpayer.”

The Tucson Sector Horse Patrol Unit was responsible for more than 18,000 apprehensions and more than 93,000 pounds of marijuana seizures from Oct. 1, 2009 to Aug. 31, 2010. Horses have a very low impact on the natural environment and therefore do not disturb wildlife and the ecosystem.

~CBP~

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with management, control and protection of our nation’s borders at and between official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.