Especially in the Southwest of the US and Northern Mexico, the horses were then bred and heavily traded though out the country. Many escaped and became wild and only the toughest and most enduring survived over the centuries.
At the beginning of the 20 the century there were about 1 million mustangs or wild horses roaming North America. Unfortunately, the pure bred Spanish type in those herds were becoming rare, since cross bred for hundreds of years with other "escapees" of various types. Nevertheless, they could still be found among some Native American tribal horses and in some extremely remote living wild herds.
Thanks to a handful of enthusiasts, about 300 mustangs with strong Iberian characteristics were captured, the finest of them became the foundation stock of the SMR in 1957 and fortunately their offspring survived into this century. They can be found in several registries, such as SMR (Spanish Mustang), SSMA (South West Spanish Mustang), HOA (Horse of the Americas), AIHR (American Indian Horse) and ASHA (American Sulphur Horse).
Today, with a growing economic crisis ahead, the still wild roaming BLM mustangs, as well as popular, but modern man-made and therefore high maintenance breeds will most likely decline drastically in numbers and therefore this personable, versatile, very hardy and healthy little horse breed may have a better survival chance than ever.
