Our Mission
The Rising Action Mustang Society operates a training and adoption facility for mustangs and burros managed by federal and tribal governing bodies. Our goals are:
- To connect equestrians in and around New England with these amazing horses.
- To provide mustangs and burros with life skills and help them find loving homes.
- To contribute to the effort to reduce the wild mustang’s impact on the ecosystems of the Western states by providing adoption opportunities in the Northeast.
- To educate people in New England about the history, versatility, and athleticism of the American mustang.
What is a Mustang?
A mustang is a feral horse managed by the Bureau of Land Management, United States Forestry Service, or local tribal governments.
While many mustangs live their whole lives away from human civilization, they technically aren’t wild—they’re feral. Mustangs are descended from the Spanish colonial horses, frontier ranch horses, and cavalry remounts released into the American west over the last 400 or so years.
Their domestic heritage survives in current members of the population, which means that a mustang gathered from the wild today can still be socialized, gentled, and trained just like any other horse.
There are over 50,000 mustangs in holding facilities across the western states, and over 80,000 in the wild. As the land and climate change, their population continues to grow. There are too many for the ecosystem to support. Left unchecked, they outcompete native species and overgraze delicate biomes.
The BLM, Mustang Heritage Foundation, and other organizations work to gather wild horses from the range and place them in adoptive homes across the United States.
The mustangs’ reputation is growing, increasingly recognized as sturdy, athletic, courageous horses suited to a huge range of disciplines. Mustangs have been cropping up in professional eventing barns, in the dressage ring, and on the 100 mile Tevis Cup trail.
Here in New England, opportunities to adopt have been few and far between. We have no major corral and only rare adoption events.
Thus the Rising Action Mustang Society was born. We’re bringing the legend East. We hope you’ll come and meet them.
Meet the Team
Jasmine Foster
Executive Director, Co-Founder
Jasmine is a lifelong horse girl. As a young adult, she focused her equestrian drive into a degree in animal biology, hours working with the Epona Integrated Riding Foundation, an internship at Ashford Stud in Kentucky—and lots of saddle time. Today, she rides with eventer Andrea Waldo of Triple Combination Farm and trains her personal mustangs Kestrel and Chrysaetos.
Madison Berry
Director, Co-Founder
Madison has been all over the equestrian map, from showing western pleasure to catch-riding hunter-jumpers. In 2016, she moved to Vermont to work with AFTER the Track as it became the first organization in New England accredited by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. There she did everything from communications, to fundraising, to shoveling countless stalls. Most of her down time is spent with her personal mustangs, Merlin and Sparrowhawk.
