Brown confirmed that the Oct. 18 roundup would not take place.

The 10th Circuit released a short order on Friday declaring the checkerboard roundup to be in violation of the Wild Horses and Burros Act and The Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

The court said it would explain its reasoning in a future opinion.

The cases center on three wild horse populations in south-central Wyoming. The Rock Springs Grazing Association requested the BLM remove the horses from the group’s land in the area.

The grazing association and BLM reached a 2013 agreement in which the land management agency agreed to periodically remove wild horses from the entire checkerboard in order to keep them off private grazing land.

Horse advocates claimed the consent decree was illegal because it allowed the agency to remove horses from public lands in the checkerboard as if they were private. The Wild Horses Act mandates strict procedures for the agency to remove horses from public lands compared to a much simpler process for removing the animals from private land.