The status of the Colonial Spanish horse is considered threatened overall with seven individual strains specifically identified.

They typically have narrow but deep chests, with the front legs leaving the body fairly close together.

[2] In 2010, the Colonial Spanish mustang was voted the official state horse of North Carolina.

[9] Where they have been found to have descended from the original Spanish horses, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other agencies attempt to preserve them.

[1] Blood typing, along with phenotype and historical documentation have been used to confirm significant Spanish ancestry of a few BLM managed herds.

[10] In 1985, the BLM awarded a grant to the University of California, Davis, to conduct a three-year study on mustang genetics, including the percentage of original Spanish blood.

[11] Ann T. Bowling and R. W. Touchberry did not find much evidence of Spanish genetics in the Great Basin horses tested, but follow up work by Gus Cothran, then of University of Kentucky, carried on the study and found Spanish markers in the Pryor Mountain and Cerbat herds outside the Great Basin, and Sulphur Springs herd within it,[12] later confirming the findings for the Sulphur Springs herd through mtDNA sequencing analysis.