October 23, 1999 18:42 EDT Man Pays $19,000 for Wild Horse By Jeff Barnard Associated Press Writer BURNS, Ore. (AP)-When the bidding started Saturday on a 6-month-old Kiger mustang filly fresh off the range, 91-year-old retired wildlife biologist Bob Smith sat in the front row and kept his yellow bidding card held high. When Smith finally laid his bidding card in the blanket covering his legs, the crowd of some 500 people packing the Harney County Fairgrounds grandstands for the first Kiger Mustang auction shook their heads in disbelief, clapped and thumped each other on the back. Smith had agreed to pay a record $19,000 for the privilege of adopting the wild horse of his dreams. "Most wild horses are just that, feral horses," said Smith, looking like anything but a high roller in a crumpled felt hat, faded green quilted jacket, and frayed tan slacls. "But these are the Spanish mustangs." "I've wanted a real bona fide mustang most all my life," said Smith, who worked as a buckaroo in his youth and a biologist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before retiring in Central Point. "I probably won't be around by the time the next one of these comes around." Back in 1971 when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management began rounding up wild horses to keep them from overgrazing public rangeland, many ranchers considered them no better than coyotes, to be shot on sight. But each year the buzz has been building on those showing color and traits of the Sorraias, Andalusians, Garranos and Spanish Barbs that the Spanish brought to the new world in the 16th and 17th centuries---especially the Kigers, which make their home in the high desert of southeastern Oregon on the flanks of the Steens Mountains. With demand growing, the Bureau of Land Management two years ago abandoned the lotteries held to award adoption picks, and the $125 adoption fee, in favor of competitive bidding. Because the kigers are only rounded up every three years, this was the first time they had been adopted by auction. The price Smith paid doesn't approach the $50,000 that Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studio purportedly paid Oregon breeder Bill (sic) Littleton for Donner, a ranch-bred Kiger that will serve as the model for the upcoming animated motion picture, "Spirit". But it easily doubled anything paid at a BLM wild horse auction and was half-again the high end for ranch-bred Kigers. The next highest at Saturday's auction was a two-year-old filly for $2500. The top stud was a yearling that went for $2100. Smith said he knew immediately upon seeing the little filly in the viewing pens on Friday that she was the horse he wanted, no matter what it cost. He liked her light dun color, the good zebra striping on her legs, her fine head and overall conformation. "I brought him a lawn chair and he just sat and watched her for an hour," said his friend and trainer, Coni Floray. "It's a dream come true."

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