BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) - Mustangs rounded up from Eastern Oregon's range lands are headed from Shadybrook Farms near Baker City to Denmark, where symbols of America's Western heritage are all the rage. Tim and Carol Delsman, owners of Shadybrook Farms, are shipping the horses by trailer, air and then train to Denmark.

Before the trip the Delsmans bathed the mustangs — five mares and one stallion —in preparation for loading them into a trailer for a two-day trip to Fort Worth, Texas. There the animals will be held in quarantine for 30 days prior to being shipped by air to Amsterdam, then by train to Denmark, where buyers Henrik and Marianne Hornshoj are planning to establish a mustang breeding program.

"There's a market in Denmark, and throughout much of Europe, for everything Western. And what could be more Western than a mustang?" Carol said.

She said prices for the six mustangs sold to the Hornshojs ranged from $1,500 to $4,500, depending on the temperament, intelligence, trainability and the amount of training each horse has received at Shadybrook Farms.

The best of the Shadybrook Farms mustangs sell for as much as $7,500 fully trained and ready to ride on mountain trails, through the desert or on a cross-country trek, Carol said. Transportation costs for the trip to Denmark are expected to exceed $8,000 for each of the six mustangs.

The stallion headed to Denmark is a 3-year-old named Shadybrook Stormy, and the leader of the five mares is a 4-year-old named Shadybrook Maggie.

Carol said she was sold on mustangs when she was just out of college and rode a half-mustang horse an average of 42 miles a day on a trek from Oregon City to Valley Forge, Pa., with the Bicentennial Wagon Train in 1975-1976.

"My half-mustang was the only horse that made the entire 3,000 miles without getting hurt, and it gained weight on the trip," she said.

While authentic mustangs gathered from the range are the newest rage in horses, Carol said everything Western, from Western riding, horse-mounted shooting, Western saddles and tack, Western clothes, boots and hats are popular in Denmark and many other European countries.

"We were told you can't buy a Western saddle in Denmark. They've all been bought up," she said.

"We had another couple from Denmark that came over to buy one of our mustangs, and they spent $1,800 on Western clothing at D&B Supply," Carol said, adding that the couple said they could take the Western attire to Denmark and sell it for four or five times what they paid for it in Baker City.

Before moving to Baker City 10 years ago, Tim retired from a 25-year career as a Portland firefighter, and Carol had given up a teaching career to raise her children and begin a career training trial dogs.

Since then they have hand-picked 40 wild mustangs, mostly from the Bureau of Land Management's wild horse adoption center near Burns.

"We went looking for good legs and good feet, and we got good minds," Tim said. "Mustangs are smarter than a lot of domestic horses."

Some years they've adopted as many as 12 mustangs. Other years, they're lucky to find one or two with the traits they're looking for.

"There have been times when we made the trip to Burns and didn't bring home a single mustang," Tim said.

One of the things he likes about the mustangs they have selected is their intelligence, and their ability to use that intelligence to make decisions.

"When we get them, they already know how to cross a creek. They already know how to be a trail horse. It's just carrying the humans that's a new thing," he said.

He said mustangs have to be smart to survive in the wild.

"In the wild, stupid dies," he said.

As an example of a mustang's survival skills, the Delsmans tell a story about a woman in California who bought one of their mustangs. One day the woman heard her horse making a ruckus when she'd left it tied outside for a few minutes.

When the woman walked out to check on the horse, she saw a dead rattlesnake on the ground under the horse. Her mustang had stomped it to death.

When it comes to training a mustang, Tim said gaining the horse's trust is the most important step in successful training.

"When we get a mustang, they are completely wild horses," he said. "You are working with a horse that is operating more out of fear than they are on disrespect, so getting their trust is so important.

"Obviously they break out real nice if you know what you are doing," he said.

Mustangs are less expensive to keep than most domestic horses because they eat less hay, their hooves are harder so they don't need horseshoes, and they don't hurt themselves by thrashing around tying to get untangled from a barbed-wire fence, the Delsmans said.

Under BLM mustang adoption rules, people pay $125 per horse and must keep the animal for at least 12 months before they can sell it. Sales are limited to eight mustangs a year by any individual.

"By the time you feed them for a year and train them, mustangs aren't any cheaper than other kinds of horses," Carol said. "They are just the kind of horses we like."

Mustangs come in all colors and sizes, and most are well muscled from running free on the open range, she said.

At Shadybrook Farms, the Delsmans have some buckskins, red duns, pintos, and palomino mustangs of various ages. They've adopted and trained a couple of the famous Kiger mustangs in the past, and still keep an older Kiger mare around to teach the young stallions some manners, but their favorite mustangs come from the Palomino Butte herd between Brothers and Bend.

The Delsmans support the BLM's horse adoption program because they see it as the most humane way to avert an overpopulation of mustangs, which if left unchecked would eventually destroy the range lands that sustain them.

"Some people think we should just let the mustangs live out their lives on the range. Everybody thinks these horses die with dignity. Well, nobody dies with dignity in the wild," Carol said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.