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1 The “wild horse” of the American West has long been a controversial subject. Depending on an individual’s perspective of the value of wild horses on the open western ranges, the animals may be interchangeably described as wild horses, feral horses, cayuse, broom-tails, rangs, broncos , mustangs, or, sarcastically, dog-food-on-the-hoof. To Annie, they were simply her “wild ones,” and their value was never in question, because she believed they represented the spirit of the American West. In large part, nineteenth-century writers who created a romantic image of the American West first forged the public image of the wild horse as a principal character in those stories. Foremost among them was German novelist Karl May (1842–1912), who depicted the free-roaming horse as a stoic allegory of independent resolve, an image that would become synonymous with the “West” among his legions of young readers. May effectively drew from his own vivid imagination; he never personally visited the American West about which he so fondly wrote. American novelist Zane Grey (1875–1939) too maintained the image of the wild horse as a metaphor to post–World War I and Depression-era readers for the drive toward a personal quest that always remained just out of reach. Such romantic portrayals existed in tandem with more utilitarian descriptions by early-twentieth-century authors such as Frank Dobie (The Mustangs) and Walker Wyman (The Wild Horse of the West), who explored the valuable contributions that wild horses made to the Pony Express, early military troops, and the development of the West by eastern settlers. Yet these more pragmatic literary representations were generally dwarfed by the medium of motion pictures, which also developed in the early 1900s. Like the books of May and Grey, the “western” films of Tom Mix and other silent-film actors continued to equate freedom with the image of the wild INTRODUCTION 2 | W I L D H O R S E A N N I E horse, a fantasy now made more powerful by the visual images that flickered on motion-picture and later television screens. It was from these origins that the wild horse developed into a romantic symbol of independence, an equation that continues to this day. Without the glamour of Hollywood or the creative imagination of the writer, the romance of the West was replaced with isolation and difficult conditions as individuals headed west and found harsh winter weather and parching summer drought. Instead of the literature-inspired romance of the wild horse, stark reality created a culture of self-reliance and a less romantic sense of independence among those who chose to stay. Settlers attempted to civilize their homesteads in the West by replacing grasslands with buildings, roads, and towns. The remaining wide-open spaces provided forage to graze their livestock, which then competed with the indigenous animals, including wild horses, for these resources. For others in the fledgling western livestock industry, the wild horses were increasingly viewed as just another tool of the trade. Captured young wild horses could be incorporated into the riding stock of the ranch—free to any adventuresome cowboy. The horses were more sure-footed than most domestic horses, could survive on sparse vegetation, and could travel long distances between water holes. Moreover, ranchers found the wild horses had an intellect (“a cow savvy”) that enabled them to second-guess the moves of other livestock, thus allowing the cowboys to more easily focus on dallying a rope. Even contemporary ranchers still express their appreciation for welltrained wild horses for ranch use. In the late 1800s, crews of hard-riding cowboys rode long distances to lasso a single wild horse. Since the wild horse was free of a rider and saddle, it usually won the challenge. Later, the cowboys began to adopt a method of gathering wild horses pioneered by the Plains Indians in order to secure larger quantities of the animals. Rather than targeting individual horses, the Plains Indians built U-shaped corral traps with openings that had long wings made of brush, fencing, or anything else that could be used to funnel a band of wild horses toward the center of the corral. Men on horseback would locate a band of five to twelve horses at a time and begin to chase them toward the corral. Another team of men on the ground hid close to the opening of the trap until the horses entered the enclosure. The men then rushed to drag a...

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