How do competitors prepare a mustang for the Extreme Mustang Makeover?

Preparing a mustang for the Extreme Mustang Makeover within the hundred-day window requires a carefully structured training timeline that moves efficiently through the gentling, ground work, and under-saddle development phases without rushing any stage past genuine consolidation — and experienced competitors describe the management of this timeline as the primary competitive skill that separates top finishers from the field. The first two to three weeks of the hundred days are typically devoted to establishing the foundational trust relationship — join-up or advance-and-retreat work, first touch, haltering, and beginning ground desensitization — rather than rushing toward under-saddle work, because competitors who skip or compress this phase consistently produce horses whose subsequent performance reveals the gaps in the foundational trust. The ground work phase that follows develops leading, yielding, rope acceptance, and the specific desensitization of tack that must precede safe mounting, and experienced competitors move through this phase efficiently by working multiple short sessions per day rather than fewer long sessions, allowing the horse's nervous system to consolidate learning between sessions. The under-saddle development phase, which may begin anywhere from the second to the fourth week depending on the individual horse's readiness, develops steering, stop, gait transitions, and the specific performance skills the competitor plans to showcase in the competition. The final weeks of preparation focus on polishing the specific performance the trainer will present and on the environmental conditioning that ensures the horse can perform in the competition venue with its crowd noise, unfamiliar horses, and novel environment rather than only in the familiar training setting. Trainers like Scott Grosskopf and Mustang Maddy, who have extensive Extreme Mustang Makeover experience, consistently describe the timeline management and the accurate reading of each individual horse's readiness for each stage as the most important competitive skills.