Monero Mustangs Sanctuary at Yellow Hills Ranch
Monero Mustangs is a New Mexico non-profit corporation approved as a 501(c)3 by the Internal Revenue Service (see links to MoneroMustangs.org above). It manages a herd of Mustangs on rangeland provided by Yellow Hills Ranch in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico. Together Monero Mustangs and Yellow Hills Ranch are working on a program to assist Mustangs with the following goals:
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To showcase the mustangs as primary contributors in a sustainable rangeland management program, as drivers of New Mexico ecotourism, and as part of a rangeland restoration program.
- To preserve the original Spanish Horse, particularly the El Rito Horses that evidence suggests are among the last descendants of the first horses brought from Mexico into North America in 1598.
- To preserve and develop the hard won traits bread into the El Rito Mustangs during the past 400 years in the wild, particularly their toughness, intelligence, and herd instincts.
- To introduce a new generation to methods for gentling a horse while training it to be a lifelong companion.
Horses changed west and our Country forever. None of them more so than the forebears of the El Rito Mustangs. When the Spanish crossed the Rio Grande and headed north in 1598, entering for the first time what is now the United States, they brought with them a herd of Spanish Horses.
Some of the horses that escaped from these early settlements in the area of Abiquiu, New Mexico (the history) provided the founding stock for the Monero herd. The Monero Mustangs have been in the area for approximately four hundred years. Over time, and due to the pressures that molded them, they have become a repository for many unique characteristics that include an uncommon toughness and intelligence. It was a "breeding program" that only those unique circumstances could produce.
The Mustangs at Yellow Hills Ranch are contributing to a new understanding about their relationship to the modern range, and they are collaborators in developing practices that assure a place for their kind in the American West. In this way they can continue to contribute to the richness and traditions of the American West for many years to come.