Watch Wild Horse Wild Ride

Wild Horse Wild Ride is a documentary film about a unique competition in Texas that brings horse whisperers, rodeo folk, and animal husbandry experts from around the world. The challenge is to tame a wild mustang in one hundred days. Every year, the US government rounds up thousands of horses from public land to give to ranches, animal husbandry specialists, and horseback riders. The horses are entirely wild and have never had experience with humans, but need lasting homes. Since this annual event, a competition has emerged called the Extreme Mustang Makeover Challenge. One hundred of the best people in horse training are summoned to compete to tame individually a completely wild mustang horse so that the horse can be adopted and live beyond federal government-jurisdicted corrals.

The film focuses on the first interactions between horse and person. Each documentary subject brings a unique expertise and approach to handling the horse and each has mixed results. Two brothers from New Hampshire with an interest in horses attempt to touch their mustang, but with little success. An old Navajo man with years of experience with horses begins to communicate with his horse. In another scene, a biomedical engineer who grew up with horses reconnects with his love of horse in his initial moments with his mustang. A roofer with a deep interest in horses has surprising success dealing with his mustang. The rest of the documentary subjects are people who work with horses full time. Some are cowboys and ranch hands while others animal physicians, horse riders, and trainers.

After the one hundred days, everyone brings his horse to Fort Worth, Texas. There, the government jurors of the competition will determine whether the horse is domesticated enough to be adopted. Trainers of all kinds bid on the horses, but if the trainers who were with the mustangs for one hundred days want the horse, they have to bid against everyone else. Some horses remain in corrals.