Big bucks for a Kiger

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <gabbani@starnet.com.eg>]

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Part of my job for the magazine involves cruising some of the more obscure
news sources.
Found this, it's pretty neat.

06:42 PM ET 10/23/99

Man Pays $19,000 For Wild Horse

 Man Pays $19,000 For Wild Horse
 By JEFF BARNARD=
 Associated Press Writer=
 	   BURNS, Ore. (AP) _ When the bidding started Saturday on a
 6-month-old Kiger mustang filly fresh off the range, 91-year-old
 retired wildlife biologist Bob Smith sat in the front row and kept
 his yellow bidding card held high.
 	   When Smith finally laid his bidding card in the blanket covering
 his legs, the crowd of some 500 people packing the Harney County
 Fairgrounds grandstands for the first Kiger mustang auction shook
 their heads in disbelief, clapped and thumped each other on the
 back.
 	   Smith had agreed to pay a record $19,000 for the privilege of
 adopting the wild horse of his dreams.
 	   ``Most wild horses are just that, feral horses,'' said Smith,
 looking like anything but a high roller in a crumpled felt hat,
 faded green quilted jacket, and frayed tan slacks. ``But these are
 the Spanish mustangs.
 	   ``I've wanted a real bona fide mustang most all of my life,''
 said Smith, who worked as a buckeroo in his youth and a biologist
 for U.S. Fish and Wildlife service before retiring in Central
 Point. ``I probably won't be around by the time the next one of
 these comes around.''
 	   Back in 1971 when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management began
 rounding up wild horses to keep them from overgrazing public
 rangeland, many ranchers considered them no better than coyotes, to
 be shot on sight.
 	   But each year the buzz has been building on those showing colors
 and traits of the Sorraias, Andalusians, Garranos and Spanish Barbs
 that the Spanish brought to the New World in the 16th and 17th
 centuries _ especially the Kigers, which make their home in the
 high desert of southeastern Oregon on the flanks of Steens
 Mountain.
 	   With demand growing, BLM two years ago abandoned the lotteries
 held to award adoption picks, and the $125 adoption fee, in favor
 of competitive bidding. Because the Kigers are only rounded up
 every three years, this was the first time they had been adopted by
 auction.
 	   The price Smith paid doesn't approach the $50,000 that Stephen
 Spielberg's Dreamworks studio purportedly paid Oregon breeder Bill
 Littleton for Donner, a ranch-bred Kiger stud that will serve as
 the model for the upcoming animated motion picture ``Spirit.''
 	   But it easily doubled anything paid at a BLM wild horse auction
 and was half-again the high end for ranch-bred Kigers.
 	   The next highest at Saturday's auction was a 2-year-old filly
 for $2,500. The top stud was a 1-year-old that went for $2,100.
 	   ``It's unreal, isn't it?'' said Mack Isley of Pasco, Wash., the
 president of the Kiger Musteno Association. ``It looks like some
 people are finally beginning to realize the value of these horses.
 It isn't just the Kiger. It's all wild horses.''
 	   The Kigers were first rounded up in 1974 on Beaty Butte, where
 BLM Burns District wild horse manager Ron Harding had heard there
 might be horses exhibiting the dun factor characteristic of the old
 Spanish breeds. They were moved to a range management area along
 Kiger Creek, which flows off Steens Mountain.
 	   The dun factor shows four colors. Dun is golden with black
 points. Red dun is reddish. Grulla (pronounced the Spanish way,
 GROO-ya) is a warm mouse-gray. Claybank, the rarest, is similar to
 buckskin.
 	   The most sought-after horses have zebra striping on their legs,
 a dorsal stripe down the back, fine muzzles, eyes wide apart, and
 hooked ears with dark outlines and tufts of hair at the bottom.
 	   Smith said he knew immediately upon seeing the little filly in
 the viewing pens on Friday that she was the horse he wanted, no
 matter what it cost.
 	   He liked her light dun color, the good zebra striping on her
 legs, her fine head and overall conformation.
 	   ``I brought him a lawn chair and he just sat and watched her for
 an hour,'' said his friend and trainer Coni Floray. ``It's a dream
 come true.''



Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
gabbani@starnet.com.eg