FamilyHorses.net Founder and head trainer is April Lee. Our focus is gentling American Mustangs through the Trainer Incentive Program and finding suitable adopters for them. We are located on 3 acres in Littlerock, CA (near Palmdale).

April has been involved with horses since the age of 13 when her father purchased a green broke unregistered Arabian mare including saddle and 2 bridles for $400.00. Being new to the horse world neither knew this was a bad idea. With no concept of how to secure the saddle or bridle the horse, April’s first rides were bareback in a halter. She’d head out on the trail, the then barn sour mare would spin, causing April to fall off and the horse would run home. This became such a routine that pretty soon the boarding stable would just tie the mare up and wait for her rider to return.With persistence and lots of hard work April cultivated a relationship and developed the mare into a mount that was suitable for the youngest of riders. In 1997 April purchased a 1 month old Quarter Horse filly from a local breeder. Drawing on her previous experience and utilizing only Pat Parelli’s ”Natural Horse-man-ship” book as a guide, that filly grew into a beautiful mare. With time she was able to ride bridleless on the trail ponying young horses.

April spent several years training and selling horses with her long-time friend Adrienne Gendot. April and Adrienne would obtain horses that needed training, fitting and/or just plain good marketing and resell them. While this venture was never operated as a rescue, horses were sometimes obtained from local auctions with little to no background information. On more than one occasion the horse proved to be greener than represented or outright dangerous. Each horse presented a new challenge and overcoming those challenges allowed April to further develop her horsemanship skills.

Having evaluated thousands of horses and working personally with well over 100 April was looking for a new challenge. What better challenge than an American Mustang. In August of 2009 she adopted her 1st mustang, Tabasco, from the Ridgecrest Corrals. She soon discovered his natural disposition and curiosity lent him more towards cooperation than resistance and he proved to be no greater challenge than any other domestic horse. A year or so later April applied for Mustang Heritage Foundations Trainer Incentive Program. She was accepted based on the application and references she provided.

In January 2013 April picked up her first TIP horse, Biscuit, from the Ridgecrest corrals. What started as a goal to find homes for four horses in 2013 has become so much more. As of January 2015 April has found adopters for over 60 horses and burros. The response has been overwhelming so in December 2014, due to the growth of Family Horses, April hand picked a board of directors and incorporated Family Horses as a non-profit. Her goal is to continue to find adoptive homes for these mustangs an burros.