Erda » Just six months ago, the mustang housed in the corral at Cliff and Janet Tipton's place just outside Tooele was roaming the desert 50 miles west of the Salt Lake Valley.

These days the 5-year-old mare, which gave birth to a foal two weeks ago, is being gentled by the Tiptons for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the hope she'll soon be adopted by a horse lover eager to own a wild-born animal.

The Tiptons are members of Intermountain Wild Horse & Burro Advisors Inc., a nonprofit volunteer organization that works with the BLM to gentle mustangs and burros brought in from the wild and prepare them for adoption. Their efforts are especially important today with the collapse of horse prices in Utah and other parts of the country amid unprecedented pressures on all aspects of the equine industry.

Standing in the corral with the mustang that has been named Candy, Cliff Tipton runs the end of a 12-foot pole over the withers of the nervous mare. She soon calms down under the pole's easy but steady pressure, which Tipton said acts as an extension of his arm and is meant to get the animal used to being touched.

"We had to back off of her training when she got close to giving birth," said Janet Tipton, who watches her husband work through the horizontal bars of the corral. "We didn't want to put her under any undue stress."

In the face of the recession, there is no shortage of stress to go around.

A growing number of horse owners are seeking to rid themselves of their animals as they try to cut costs and step away from what can be a very expensive hobby that can easily cost a couple of hundred dollars a month for one horse. Add to that the forced closure by Congress of the nation's horse slaughter houses in late 2007, and the result is a glut of unwanted animals, many of which are being abandoned.

All of this has made it more difficult in recent months for the BLM to place its mustangs in a good home. Adoption rates have plunged.

"Last year we adopted out 110 animals from our Butterfield Canyon holding facility," near Herriman, said Jared Redington, spokesman for the BLM and its wild horse and burro adoption program. "Given the recession, if we adopt out 70 animals this year we'll be very excited."

Although current data on the size and strength of Utah's equine industry is difficult to come by, a Utah State University study in 1999 found that the state's residents owned about 250,000 horses and spent nearly $1 billion a year to keep them.

"The industry has almost certainly grown since then," said Patricia Evans, an equine specialist in USU's Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences. "But the declining prices for horses is definitely having an impact."

Evans said horse owners who two years ago may have gotten $500 to $600 for each animal would maybe get $25 to $50 today.

The Tiptons hope to have the mare with the "quiz mark" on her forehead gentled and ready for adoption at the upcoming Wild Horse and Burro show scheduled for mid-May in West Jordan. "She is such a beautiful animal. We've already seen a lot of interest in her," Janet Tipton said.

Since its founding five years ago, Intermountain Wild Horse and Burro Advisors has gentled around 125 mustangs for the BLM and seen 99 percent of the animals adopted. The group's 50 members gentle and train the BLM's horses for free, but those who board the animals are paid $2.50 a day for their care. The organization operates with the philosophy that it is easier to get a wild horse adopted if it is ready to accept a saddle and rider.

Candy, already in foal at the time, was among more than 450 wild horses from the BLM's Cedar Mountain Herd that were rounded up in December as the agency worked to keep the herd still on the range in balance with the available forage and water. The herd is believed to be related to the mounts that the Standard Horse and Mule Co. supplied to the U.S. Cavalry in the late 1800s.

V. Gus Warr, a wild horse and burro specialist with the BLM in Utah, said the horses rounded up in December that are not adopted will be sent to other states in an effort to find them a home. "Eventually, those animals that fail to be adopted will be sent to long-term BLM holding facilities in the Midwest, where they will be allowed to live out their lives."

In the corral in Erda, Cliff Tipton put his pole down and quietly stepped up to the mare and slipped a halter over her head. "She really wants to get back there with her foal," he said. "We'll let her go in a few minutes."

"The biggest problem people have after they adopt one of these horses is that they get in a hurry," he said. "These are wild animals, and it takes time to build trust and a bond with them."

Once trained, though, they are among the best saddle horses around, he said. "They will do anything you ask them to do."

steve@sltrib.com