College equine instructors to teach horsemanship using Walker—an adopted, inmate-trained wild horse

The Wyoming Department of Corrections Wyoming Honor Farm and the BLM placed all 46 gentled wild horses and burros that were available for adoption into new homes at their fall adoption. Almost 250 people attended the adoption from throughout Wyoming and several other states.

The high bid of the adoption was $5,000 for saddle-trained Walker, a 2-year-old grulla gelding from the Divide Basin Herd Management Area east of Rock Springs. Of the eight burros offered, a 6-year-old named Kodak, who had been trained to ride, pack and pull a cart, fetched the winning bid of $800. Overall, the average price for a riding horse was $2,147. The halter-started horses went for an average of $413, and $669 on average for a pack-trained burro.

Walker has a bright future at the Wyoming Catholic College in Lander. Equine instructors in the school’s Horsemanship Program will train him for use in their Introduction to Horsemanship course. The program has adopted Honor Farm-trained horses in the past.

Instructors Lorine Sheehan and Marjorie Papadopoulos attended the preview the day before to watch the horses and get a sense of which ones would work in their program. Walker was their first choice going into the adoption the next morning.

“Walker was calm, had beautiful transitions, wasn’t pushy, was listening and waiting for instructions, was built well, and had great movement,” said Sheehan, director of the Horsemanship Program.

Both instructors are fans of the Honor Farm training program and mustangs in general, considering them easy keepers with good feet.

“I’ve never had soundness issues with a mustang,” said Papadopoulos. “The fun thing about having them in our Horsemanship Program is that we get to ride them, too.”

“We’re excited you guys do this,” added Sheehan. “It’s really good for the wild horses. And horses teach you so much about how to be a good human being.”

Our partnership with the Honor Farm over the past 36 years is a win-win situation—together, we've placed more than 5,000 animals removed from overpopulated herds into good, private homes, and inmates who are released after working in the wild horse and burro training program have a greater chance to succeed in the outside world.

“It’ll change your life to see the difference the wild horse program makes in these men’s lives every day,” said Farm Manager Travis Shoopman.