Our Mission
The Rising Action Mustang Society envisions a future in which New England’s accomplished horsepeople are equipped to provide loving homes for formerly wild mustangs.
Our mission is to:
- Provide formerly wild mustangs with the skills to live happy, healthy lives in domestic homes.
- Connect New Englanders with the American mustang through education, consultation, and access.
- Contribute to the effort to reduce the wild mustang’s impact on the ecosystems of the western states by providing adoption and training opportunities in the Northeast.
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, mining ponies, farm drafts, and cavalry remounts released into the American west over the last 400 or so years.
What is RAMS For?
Free-roaming wild horses live in herds managed by the Bureau of Land Management and/or the United States Forest Service. Each year, some percentage of these horses must be gathered into corral systems to reduce their impact on climate-strained ecosystems such as the Great Basin, the volcanic plateaus of Northern California, and the semi-arid plains of Oregon, in accordance with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Once gathered, they are held in taxpayer-funded government facilities until they are adopted or determined unsuitable for adoption and placed in long-term holding.
There are currently over 60,000 of these animals in the corral system. The ideal outcome for most mustangs is to be placed in private homes, which can provide personalized nutrition, access to veterinary and farrier care, and lifelong companionship. In return, a well-trained mustang can be an extraordinary mount, with many showing in amateur equestrian sport and some even reaching the highest level of endurance competition with their human partners.
However, the average horseperson in the United States does not have the knowledge, skills, or facility infrastructure to handle a fully feral mustang. Furthermore, people in New England do not have easy access to mustangs at all, given that the nearest federal corral is in Illinois and that there are only 2-3 BLM adoption opportunities in New England states per year. At RAMS, we bridge the gap not only by teaching these horses how to live as domestic animals and matching them with adoptive homes, but also by increasing access to these amazing horses in the New England equestrian community and providing educational opportunities about the history, versatility, and athleticism of the American mustang.
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.
