Black Crow Mustangs, a mustang rescue organization associated with the United States Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service purchased the former Fieldview Farm at 2716 Post Albany Road April 12, with plans to renovate the property into a rescue facility where wild horses would be rehabilitated, trained, and cherished.

The organization was founded at New Paltz in 2022 by Mike Kefer and Cody Bisignano, who adore mustangs and have trained horses since they were children. Andy Justin, owner of Stonehenge Farm in Bullville, and his wife Ashley are fellow rescuers who joined Black Crow Mustangs after Kefer trained one of their adopted mustangs.

“Ever since I was a kid, I was infatuated with Mustangs. I started working with them for clients probably 20 years ago, and I realized that my way of communicating with horses works well with mustangs,” Kefer said. “Since me and Cody have been working together, we’ve worked with about 100 mustangs.”

“I’ve been training horses prior to that on my own. I’m a travel trainer and I’ve worked with difficult and neglected horses,” Bisignano said. “So naturally, it worked with the wild mustangs.”

“Ashley basically adopted a mustang, and that’s how we met Mike. Mike helped us train the mustang, which is now a wonderful family horse that can be ridden by children and adults,” Andy said. “My wife is very into horse therapy, basically helping people with mental issues. And by dealing with these horses, it seems to have amazing therapy results.”

Ten of thousands of wild mustangs roam the United States, especially in the Midwest, and often face mistreatment and neglect. Due to their large population and untamed nature, many of these horses end up at facilities where they are occasionally adopted but usually sent to kill pens. Many rehabilitation centers operate in the Midwest to give mustangs new leases on life, and Black Crow Mustangs aims to provide those same services for the Northeast.

“What we’re really going to try, and what’s really important to me, is getting people to understand the plight of these animals,” Andy said. “Luckily, in the United States, we hold horses in high standards, but some meat distributors don’t mind and they just make money in it. It’s really horrible.”

“There’s a bunch of big rescue facilities in California and in the West, and they’re basically almost processing places for people to do what we’re doing,” he continued. “But we’re here and they’re there and we’re all working together.

Black Crow Mustangs’ 48-acre farm comprises several open pastures, specially gated grounds for training wild mustangs, and a barn with all the amenities needed to care for its mustangs. Before the farm can begin operations, the group must finish renovations and cleanup, enlist volunteers and standby vets, and acquire nonprofit status. Andy speculated that the farm will be ready in a month, rebranded to “Black Crow Mustangs at Justin Stables.”

“We’re organizing everything now and it’s very important for us to get these things right,” Andy said. “For instance, we can’t just have one vet; we have to have two or three vets on-call all the time. We can’t set ourselves up for failure.”

Once the farm opens, the U.S. government will send over wild mustangs from the Midwest, especially those from Nevada, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Once transported, Black Crow Mustangs will train and cultivate these horses, giving them the best possible lives. As Andy summed it up they will treat their Mustangs like gold.

“It’s going to be a lot of love and a lot of volunteers working with them. They’re going to be fully fed, fully grained, their stalls will have full shavings in them. They’re treated as if they’re half-million dollar horses,” Andy said. “We treat them like they’ve already had enough crap in their lives, being rounded up, stuck in pens, and shipped around.”

Black Crow Mustangs will also provide various opportunities for residents to engage with and learn more about their horses through tours, equine therapy services, boarding lessons, and venue spaces for parties and seasonal events. Visitors will also have the option to adopt and sponsor mustangs, though they will need to receive approval and undergo extensive training if they consider adoption. The organization wishes for more people to understand the beauty of mustangs and looks forward to collaborating with local communities for the betterment of these animals.

“We’re going to do a big Halloween ball with mustangs and we’re going to have a lot of fun with them. Our mustangs are all going to be wearing costumes,” Andy said. “We’re just really trying to enlighten people to play with these animals and we’re doing the best we can to save them.”

For more information on Black Crow Mustangs, visit blackcrowmustangs.com/home.