Crossed Wires

Well, I guess someone got their wires crossed. Mark Burnette was suppose to be interviewed on "Talk of the Town" on 1340 WBIW this morning but they had Military Recruiters on there instead. My Son called to ask me if I was trying to get him to join the military, since he had read my last blog and was dutifully listening to the show this morning. So now I don't know when the show will air or if it has already aired and we missed it.

I did get some of the pictures of Mark and his Mustang ready to post here but I haven't edited the videos yet.

We were very impressed by Hoof-Hearted (think about this name being announced at the Extreme Mustang Makeover and you will understand the joke). He was already named when they got him but Mark and his family call him Buddy. He is heavy boned, thick legged, Mark said that he is sound and has a lot of stamina. He has a natural low head set and is friendlier with strangers than Mustang Sally was. Mustang Sally was the horse that Mark trained for the Midwest Mustang Challenge.


Buddy has a nice head, a kind eye and a nice sized ear for a Mustang. He is also a decent sized horse, Mustang Sally was a tad too small but Buddy is big enough for a man to ride but also not too tall for a height challenged person to own. So if you are in the market for a good trail horse and you are going to be at the Extreme Mustang Makeover Auction, then you should take a look at Buddy.

Here are some more pictures that I took, but I didn't take many still shots, I took mostly videos. The last picture below is my DH riding Buddy before Buddy's long trip to the Fort Worth, Texas competition.

Mustang Results

I finally found the results of the Midwest Mustang Challenge listed here:

Freestyle Winners

Overall Scores

We haven't had the opportunity to talk to him but it looks like our favorite Trainer, Mark Burnette and Mustang Sally didn't make the top 10 winner's list but did finish up at number 13 in the total scores in this competition of 50 trainers.

I have also searched through some blogs of other trainers and found out that Mustang Sally sold at auction for $2700.

One trainer even said that Mark should be a comedian:
Jessie and Remington's Blog

Who Won??

I have been trying to get information on who won the Midwest Mustang Challenge in Wisconsin and can find nothing. I would love to know who the top 10 horses were.

You would think that their website would have been updated during the event or at least by now, it is the 22nd for Pete's sake. Who is in charge of updating their website? I would have thought that the Midwest Mustang Challenge event would have been big news somewhere online.

Midwest Mustang Challenge

We went to Mark Burnette's today and got to see him work with Mustang Sally. She is as cute as can be. She is small and proud, a little feisty because she has finally started eating her grain. She let me pet her, Mark said that she has been a little shy with strangers, so he was pleased that she let me touch her face.

She carries herself very well under saddle and is riding nicely. She had an audience today to show off for.

The Mustang Challenge idea is just a stroke of genius in my opinion, it works out great for everyone involved and gives these horses some value.

She drops her head and keeps it low whenever he stops her, she stands very still and waits patiently for her next assignment.

Mustang Update

I talked to Mark Burnette, who is training the mustang for the Midwest Mustang Challenge, and he tells me that Mustang Sally is doing very well. He is still having some problems catching her but she is improving.

The thing that he is most excited about is that she seems to be loving their sessions and she enjoys learning new things, also she is retaining what she learns.

I hope to get down there with my camera and get some pictures of her to post here, if the weather ever gets nice.

The weather has been a problem for Mark as well, he has a roof on his large arena but not any walls. The high winds and blowing rains that we have had turned his nice sandy riding area into quicksand and then the cold temps hit which made the wet sand like uneven concrete.

Mustang Sally

TMNews.com | Times Mail

This article appeared in our local newspaper about a friend of ours. He has entered the Midwest Mustang Challenge and has drawn a 4 yr. old Mustang mare named Sally to train, he picked her up in Illinois on January 12th. She will be spending the next couple of months with Mark Burnette in Williams, Indiana.

She is not very big, just a large pony really that has not been handled, as he says in the article, “This is a horse that’s never been touched really, and within 20 minutes (of unloading her) I was petting her on the shoulder. I thought she’d be nuts. She’s very well behaved, she’s never tried to kick me.”

Mark will have Sally for around 100 days and will then take her to Wisconsin, where he will be competing with 60 other amateur trainers and their newly trained Mustangs.

They will be competing for a share of the $12,000 in prize money, then their horses will be auctioned off to the public. At last year's auction some of the trained Mustangs brought thousands of dollars, as compared to the usual $125 adoption fees.

Rumor has it that Sally has already put Mark on the ground but that is nothing new for him, he has been thrown before by much bigger horses.

Good luck, Mark, we are rooting for you!