Unbranded - The Movie

“Unbranded” follows the story of four young cowboys, Jonny Fitzsimons, Thomas Glover, Ben Masters and Ben Thamer as they travel more than 3,000 miles from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, through the deepest backcountry in the American West. The pack trip will take more than six months and wind through Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. Mustangs, born and raised in the wild, will be carrying these four men and crew on their journey. This is a story of the partnership between horse and rider, a testament to the hardiness of mustangs, and a tribute to the early explorers whose spirit remains today. This will soon be a movie which should debut soon, and you can see a trailer for the film at the bottom of this article. You can sign up for e-mail notifications concerning Unbranded the Movie as well as receive posts from their blog.

You can also order the book, in soft cover or hard cover through the main 'Unbranded the Film' website.

During the journey, a running account of the adventures of these four cowboys was kept up in another blog hosted by Western Horseman. The pictures alone make this worth looking at.  With young men like these four, this country is absolutely in good hands. 

At the end of September, 2013, a couple of weeks after finishing the 3,000+ mile ride, Ben Masters auctioned off Luke, his Mustang Paint, at the Mustang Million contest in Ft. Worth, Texas. The winning bid of $25,000 went to the Mustang Heritage Foundation to promote Mustang adoptions.

As Ben wrote: "The mustangs are in a bad spot right now. There are nearly 50,000 wild horses in holding pens and long term pastures that will live out their lives unused and in captivity. Your tax dollars buy their hay. Legally, the Bureau of Land Management is mandated to maintain the Mustang population in the wild to 27,000 animals. This number has already been exceeded, possibly to 40,000, but the BLM cannot continue gathering horses because there is no place to put horses that are rounded up. Too many horses can cause rangeland degradation that negatively affects native wildlife, plants and rural communities that depend on range health. Currently, the only method of reducing the numbers of horses in holding facilities is adoption."

"I put Luke up for auction because I want to see more wild horses get adopted. The O’Brien family (who purchased Luke) donated $25,000 to see more wild horses get adopted. The non-profit Mustang Heritage Foundation’s sole purpose is to get more wild horses adopted. Adoption gives these horses better homes, reduces taxpayer expense, and alleviates western rangelands of potential ecological harm. What can you do to help?"

"The BLM, Mustang Heritage Foundation and other mustang organizations have different ways to acquire gentled, formerly “wild” horses. A lot of mustangs are really good horses, especially for people looking for ranch or trail horses where a good mindset is more important than a timed event. They really aren’t that hard to train. People train mustangs all the time. It takes time, dedication, and a lot of hard work but it’s an incredibly rewarding experience that you have to experience to believe."

"Can’t train, adopt or buy a mustang? Dive deeper than a Google web search and learn the facts about the impact of the wild horses, different methods of population control and the options available to correcting a bad predicament. The Mustang issue, which is growing daily, is an incredibly emotional debate. People connect with horses more so than any other animal, except possibly dogs. Lots of people allow emotion to overpower rational thinking, and they value the momentary happiness of an animal over the long term ecological health that the future of that animal depends on. Get educated, learn the issues, they’re your horses on your land."

The Trailer for Unbranded The Film. Subtitled: Four cowboys ride 16 Mustangs 3,000 miles through the wildest terrain in the American West to inspire conservation efforts and prove the worth of 50,000 wild horses and burros living in holding pens.