![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_8597-683x1024.jpeg\")
Jacobs rides America\u2019s Most Wanted during the competition. She won first place and will be placed at a farm in North Carolina. (Provided photo)\t\t\t<\/p>\nJustis Jacobs, a horse trainer who works out of Swatara Township\u2019s Long Acre Farm and Feed, won first and third place in a Las Vegas competition in July with two of the wild horses he works with.<\/p>\n
First place earned him $50,000.<\/p>\n
The Mustang Challenge starts several months before the actual competition, when trainers can get a wild mustang from the Bureau of Land Management. These horses are not accustomed to human interaction, so the process has to start with building trust between the animal and trainer, Jacobs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to take it out of them on the first day, the first time you work with them. You have to really set the tone like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m not here to hurt you,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cOnce they realize, I can put my hands on them and work my way up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs worked with America\u2019s Most Wanted and Angel Eyes, who took home first place and third place, respectively. America\u2019s Most Wanted will head down to North Carolina, and Angel Eyes will go to a client near Carlisle.<\/p>\n
Jacobs rides America\u2019s Most Wanted during the competition. She won first place and will be placed at a farm in North Carolina. (Provided photo)\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Jacobs said he scouted over 2,000 horses before deciding on these two, who he described as \u201cprobably two of the best ones\u201d he has ever trained.<\/p>\n
\u201c[America\u2019s Most Wanted] was extremely easy going, never had a lot of \u2018no\u2019 to her. Extremely good personality, fairly easy to start. Anything I point to, she was just game for it,\u201d he said. \u201c[Angel Eyes] will sit there, walk up to you in the pasture, put her head on your lap, want you to pet on her. I got two mares that were extremely friendly, extremely good work ethic, and they don\u2019t have a lot of no in them. They just have so much try.\u201d<\/p>\n
After nine months of getting them used to humans and their special training, they traveled to Las Vegas for the competition.<\/p>\n
The first two days of the competition are for preliminary classes, where competitors are scored on trail, reining, and ranch riding. The trail class shows a horse\u2019s ability and willingness to perform several tasks that could be requested during a normal trail ride. Reining shows the horse\u2019s movements as they perform stops, spins, rollbacks, lead changes, and circles at a lope. Finally, ranch riding measures the horse\u2019s ability to be a good animal for the rider.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_8352-683x1024.jpeg\")
Justis Jacobs and Angel Eyes compete in Las Vegas. (Provided photo)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_8355-683x1024.jpeg\")
Justis Jacobs and Angel Eyes compete in Las Vegas (Provided photo)<\/p>\n
The top 10 highest-scoring exhibitors from these classes move on to the Mustang Challenge Championship Finals.<\/p>\n
The Saturday night final scores are based on a compulsory maneuver score and a freestyle performance, where exhibitors are meant to show the horse\u2019s athletic abilities in an \u201cexciting and appealing way,\u201d according to the event\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jacobs said the Mustang Challenge is different from any other competition in the world because they are working with wild horses.<\/p>\n He estimated over 200 people picked up horses, and around 50 showed up in Nevada to compete.<\/p>\n \u201cThis competition is extremely hard because you have so many factors, and a lot of the stuff that really makes or breaks this competition happens before the competition even starts,\u201d Jacobs said. \u201cIt is a wild ride trying to take a wild animal and getting them to be a showhorse.\u201d<\/p>\n The competition\u2019s goal is to move these wild horses kept in the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s holding areas into private care. This decreases the wild population, reduces the cost of care to taxpayers, and protects rangelands.<\/p>\n Kim Longenecker, owner of Long Acre Farm and Feed, where Jacobs boards and trains the mustangs, said this success comes from his dedication.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s here at 6 a.m., and then is here training and training and training until 7 or 8 at night every day,\u201d she said. \u201cHe just puts the time in, and he\u2019s dedicated, and he\u2019s just really passionate about what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Questions about this story? Suggestions for a future LebTown article? Reach our newsroom using this contact form and we\u2019ll do our best to get back to you.<\/p>\n Join our community of local news champions.<\/p>\n Cancel anytime.<\/p>\n Fewer ads<\/p>\n Member newsletters<\/p>\n Exclusive events<\/p>\n All monthly benefits <\/p>\n Most popular option<\/p>\n Make a bigger impact<\/p>\n Join the 1,000+ LebTown readers who support our work as members<\/p>\n Already a member? Log in here to hide these messages<\/a><\/p>\n Local news is disappearing across America, but not in Lebanon County. Help keep it that way by supporting LebTown\u2019s independent journalism. Your monthly<\/a> or annual membership<\/a> directly funds the reporting you value, or make a one-time contribution<\/a> to power our newsroom. Cancel anytime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justis Jacobs, a horse trainer who works out of Swatara Township\u2019s Long Acre Farm and Feed, won first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[25821,3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-45566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-featuredsecondary","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/farm-cover-block.jpg\")
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