Film Review: Wild Horse, Wild Ride

This weekend was the premiere of the documentary “Wild Horse, Wild Ride” at Capitol Theatre at Fort Edmonton Park. For those of you who haven’t heard of the film, the trailer is posted a couple of blogs below, but here’s a quick recap.  It’s the story of the Wild Mustang Makeover Challenge that happens every year in the United States. Every year the American government takes thousands of horses in from the wild. Most of the horses are held in public holding facilities, however every year there is a challenge held where 100 people train 100 horses and then they are auctioned off in hopes of finding better homes in the future. The documentary follows 8 people as they take on this challenge. All 8 have different levels of training, from people who chose it as their career, right down to Melissa, who has never trained a horse before (let alone a wild mustang!). 

The film was outstanding! It was really interesting getting to see 8 uniquely different training styles all working with horses who have had absolutely no human influence on them before. The filmmakers did an outstanding job of capturing enough on all 8 people that you felt both that you knew the person and that you were on the journey to train the horse with them. The audience was entirely captivated by the film for the entire duration, and the room was buzzing at the end with everyones excitement. As an audience we laughed, we cried, but most importantly we remembered why we choose to be involved in the horse industry.

The director was present at the screening as well, and he was telling us that right now in the US there are 41,000 horses in holding facilities and 31,000 in the wild. The wild mustangs are breeding at a rate of approximently 25% increase per year (meaning if there were 1000 horses today, within a year there would be 1250). There is only enough resources in the wild for about 29,000 horses, which is why the mustangs have to be rounded up every year. I really appreciated this information because I had no idea there were still that many wild mustangs in the States, and that they had to round them up in order for them to survive!

In summary, I would strongly recommend this documentary. It is a feel-good film, and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon! The film is not yet available (they are trying to work out distribution agreements still), so keep checking their website for updates! (I will also keep checking the website and post when it becomes available!)

wild-horse

Join the conversation, Cowboy Country Family… comment below and let me know what you think of the film concept (or what you thought of the film if you saw it!)

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