From my home in Los Angeles, California, it is just a few hours’ drive into the deserts of Nevada to see wild horses. If you are lucky, as I was, you might see a lone mustang on the range, galloping over powdery snow, just a few hundred metres from the highway.

According to the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), there are about 95,000 wild horses and burros – small donkeys – on public lands across the US, half of which are in Nevada. I planned to join a round-up …