Photos by ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Amber Huff, 6, of Clark County pets a yearling during a Bureau of Land Management horse auction Saturday at the Virginia Horse Center.

Photos by ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Amber Huff, 6, of Clark County pets a yearling during a Bureau of Land Management horse auction Saturday at the Virginia Horse Center.

ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech students, from left, Kelin Hite, Coreen Mysliwski and Sonja Boras participate in a Bureau of Land Management wild horse auction.

LEXINGTON -- When Velma Johnston, aka "Wild Horse Annie," first lobbied to protect the wild mustangs and burros that roam free in the American West, she probably had no idea her efforts would result in a scene like the one Saturday at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington.

A collection of men and women -- horse lovers all -- strolled around a series of pens to evaluate and consider 67 mustangs and burros offered for adoption. The animals, culled from wild herds in Nevada, California, Wyoming and seven other states, were up for auction with bids starting at $125 for those age 2 or younger, and $25 for those older than that.

North Carolina auctioneer Skip Turnbull assessed each pen before starting the bidding.

"We've got duns and bays and sorrels and chestnuts," Turnbull said at one.

Later, when no one bid on a "nice palomino," he expressed his disappointment.

"If you don't breathe a word I won't, because I'll never say I couldn't sell a palomino for $125," Turnbull said to the crowd.

Some buyers, such as Sheldon Miller of Petersburg, W.Va., were there to consider business prospects. He trains and eventually sells some mustangs, while using others to breed colts. Miller said he's been coming to wild horse and burro auctions for 11 years.

Pat Boger of Highland County had a more personal interest. She picked up her first mustang in 2002 at the horse center's last wild horse and burro auction. On Saturday she was back again, bidding on a small mustang. Then she decided to add a "buddy" and picked up a second. She then started to head toward the exit -- but alas, before she could get there, a third horse caught her attention and got adopted as well.

Others, such as Coreen Mysliwski, Kelin Hite and Sonja Boras, were first-time buyers. The three Virginia Tech students paid $230 for a brown filly and looked forward to introducing her to the rest of their horses on 10 acres near campus.

The three generally work to retrain horses and then sell them. But Mysliwski said they may well keep the wild horse -- a yearling with "four white socks aflame."

Randy Anderson, a wild horse and burro specialist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which ran the auction, said the federal government adopts out more than 3,000 horses and burros each year. It does so to help maintain a wild horse population of about 27,000, which lives in 10 Western states.

The government's been holding the auctions since 1973, two years after Congress placed wild horses and burros under federal protection.

"Prior to that, anybody could go out and gather them up," Richardson said. "Some of the things people were doing were not so pleasant."

Many of the horses were sold to slaughter houses, to be made into glue or dog food. Others were used as "bucking stock" in rodeos.

Johnston, called "Wild Horse Annie" by her detractors, helped spearhead a letter-writing campaign to protect the horses which ultimately resulted in the passage of the 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act.

Richardson said the auctions are intended to help protect the wild populations, though he acknowledges that many disagree with the method.

"Some believe we should leave them wild out there," Richardson said. "But with 20 percent reproduction, the population would double every five years."

That would bring the horse populations into conflict with both ranchers and wildlife such as elk and deer, Richardson said.

So the Bureau of Land Management instead holds the auctions to keep the population manageable. According to Karen Roberts, the bureau's assistant chief of external affairs, more than 216,000 wild horses and burros have been adopted since 1973. About 2,000 have been adopted in Virginia.

The government does place restrictions on who can adopt the animals, requiring they go to homes with enough open land to support them. Richardson told potential buyers they needed a small, 400-square-foot pen with a 5- or 6-foot-high fence. In a larger pen, the horses may not allow humans to get near them.

The various buyers all had different methods for looking. Boger evaluated the horses by their faces.

Mysliwski said she looked for "conformation -- how they're put together. You look at their eye, for a kind eye, and look at their color."

Kimberly Loveless, a Stafford County resident and volunteer at the auction, said she spent a year doing research before adopting her first wild horse.

She looked into the history of each wild herd, which reflects the blends of breeds in each. Most herds descended from horses that were turned loose or wandered off during the West's frontier days, but some are believed to have come from America's first horses, introduced by Spanish explorers in the 1500s.

Loveless also looked for conformation, straight legs, a short back and a pretty head and face.

Even after she found a "perfect" horse, though, Loveless had to train it using methods different from those she'd used with domesticated horses.

"You have to understand the herd mentality, and how to properly apply pressure and release the pressure when they do what you want," Loveless said.

Certainly, training a wild horse takes time and patience.

Boger learned that in 2002, when against a friend's advice she adopted a slightly older horse instead of a yearling.

"I gentled her just fine but beyond that ... she never got over being flighty and staying alert for predators," Boger said.

She's had better luck with the younger horses she's adopted since then.

By Saturday afternoon, the bureau still had several dozen wild horses remaining. They will be at the Virginia Horse Center again today from 9 a.m. until noon.