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Cerbat Mustangs

The Cerbat mustangs, found just outside Kingman, Arizona, are some of the purest descendents of the Spanish horses brought to North America in the 1500s. Blood testing shows they have strong genetic markers typical of Spanish horses. They have a gait similar to the Paso breeds. Roan horses are born roan, unlike other breeds who only turn roan after they shed their foal coat. These are descendants of the horses that were brought to the New World by the Conquistadors, and include some feral, some rancher, some mission, and some native American strains. Despite the mixture, they have been identified by DNA testing to be of Colonial Spanish Horse ancestry and they are recognized by the Spanish Mustang registry.
The Cerbats live in an inhospitable but beautiful landscape of peaks, ridges, and canyons. Much of the landscape is dominated by desert scrub and chaparral. Due to the challenging environmental conditions, the Cerbat mustangs have developed over the years, strong survival instincts as well as endurance and agility. The BLM estimates that about 60 Cerbats survive in the wild today.

"There's the photographer! Strike a pose!"

On my first trip out to find the Cerbat Mustangs, I saw a small herd on the side of the road in a valley. I pulled the car over, got out, and worked my way toward them. As I made my way toward them ever so subtly, by zigzagging across the landscape, the herd popped up their heads from their dutiful grazing and watched me as I made my way toward them. I squatted down to achieve a more stable position with my telephoto lens and to snap images on the same level as them. They tolerated this quite nicely at first but then turned around, tail towards me. I took that behavior as a gentle hint that if I stayed any longer I would be overstaying my welcome.
I drove on toward the area I had been told they like to hang out. I got really lucky! There was a herd traveling around the base of the mountain toward a water source about a quarter of a mile away. This gave me time to drive past them in order to get ahead of them so my shots would be taken head on. The only problem was the sun wasn’t in the best place. I caught either backlighting or once they came around the mountain, side lighting. But it was amazing to see these gorgeous animals perk up at the sight of me and half run towards me and past me. Though I kept my distance in order to give them their space, I was able to witness much of their activity and document it with my telephoto lens.
As with any wildlife, you just never know if you’ll be on the ‘right side’ of the action to achieve the best angles for full visibility of their activity. Their location, activity level, the sun, and other obstacles such as mountains, trees, and vegetation will dictate how well I can watch them and photograph them. Sometimes you get lucky and all those factors work together in the best possible ways and other times….not so much, as in the case of this particular excitement.

I had a few favorites among these horses. Definitely the gray pictured above, with the flowing black mane and the kind sweet liquid eyes was among my favorite. He was curious of me but also equally afraid. The goal is to keep them afraid (without doing anything overtly obviously to scare them) because being afraid and distrustful is what will keep them alive in many instances.

One of the challenges of finding the horses was that they often hung out on the rocky sides of a mountain or butte. From the road, they often looked like little dots. Often I would pull off the road after sighting a dot or series of dots scattered across the mountain side only to find that what I was seeing was actually just rocks or bushes or some other kind of vegetation!

"I'll keep still and she won't be able to see me!"
"Oh it's just that clicking lady again."

Besides the one water source I learned from the locals there were a couple more. They were located however quite a long hike away although I did hike out far enough to find at least one of the two. While on that hike I met a real cowgirl who had her young horse out trying to get some miles on him in order to settle him down. She was about my age, decked out in a cowboy hat, chaps, spurs, the works! We talked for a bit and I learned her name was Brenda. Brenda shared a lot of information with me that would help me on my search for these wild horses in the Cerbat Mountains.
Speaking of friends, I made 3 other friends who lived in the same area as the horses. Allisia, Kip, and Mike were all very helpful to me in sharing information about the horses and the area they call home. I appreciated how all of my new friends enjoyed sharing the land with the wild horses and kept an eye out on them. Our wild horses need these kinds of guardians….keepers of the wild.

While searching for the horses I was kept entertained by other wildlife. At one point I heard an animal charging through the brush and I was sure it was going to be a horse! But it was a steer. I also saw numerous desert squirrels, jack rabbits, and birds. The cactus wren was a new species of bird for me. They were very vocal and busy. The image included shows one cactus wren with nesting material in its mouth. Seemed kind of late or perhaps early in the season to build a nest! Another species of bird new to me was the phainopepla, an eyecatching shiny black bird with a distinctive crest and red eyes.

Final parting shots...

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© 2017 – All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and or duplication of this material without written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used provided that full credit is given to jantrabuephotography.com with specific directions to the original content.
© 2017 – All rights reserved.