Horses of Camargue

A few years back a traveling companion and I had a car and spent a half day driving through the Camargue. We drove down the east side (D36), took a few side roads and went all the way to Plage de Piemanson. Saw lots of black bulls, white horses and pink flamingos. Livestock grazing in the fields, flamingos in the marshes further south. I would not bother visiting Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer as it is just a beach town loaded with beach goers.

Oh my -- your phrasing makes me unable to resist recalling the Jane Fonda movie about shooting horses!

But, to address your question, aren't the Camargue horses famous for being wild or at least feral? Having them brought out to pose for photographers seems to go against that concept. See, for example, this site which says they "live in semi-liberty," are never stabled, and are not shod. http://www.midi-france.info/07020202_camarguehorses.htm

I am not sure who you need to know and what the cost is but can say with certainty they do "bring out the horses" for photographers.
Saw this year during the lavender bloom a couple of the more known photo tour groups took day trips or a couple of days to the Camargue for sunset photo shoots where "ranchers" bring out the horses at just the right time and place for photography.

I am sure you could spend a month and might get lucky and spot a few wild ones at just the right time and place there but suspect most images you see are much more planned than that.

I was under the impression but could be wrong that it would be quite expensive for a solo person arrange for themselves.

Yeah ve seen 5 day tours for liek 5 grand. But no way Im spending that amount of money and time.

Full Disclosure: I did not take this tour. But I did use Provence Panorama for a couple of other tours in 2014 and thought they were great. They do offer a Camargue tour, but I don't know if it meets all your criteria.

http://www.provence-panorama.com/en/tours-reguliers-au-depart-d-avignon/9-9.-the-secret-camargue.html

In terms of expense, I didn't mean the actual tour group costs per attendee.
On Daniel Kordan's tour description he specifically mentions that at a large expense he has arranged to have the ranchers bring out a herd horses to run through a shallow water beach at sunset just for his small group of 10 or so.

His exact quote is:
it’s a real feat that’s neither easy nor cheap to arrange outside of a big group

My point was if you figured out who the ranchers were and how to arrange this, I imagine if only for yourself it would be costly to do.

Any tour that does not specifically mention ranchers or guarantee you will photograph the horses ; I assume has made no arrangements to do so and probably not what you want.

(head of the horses union talks with his agent on the phone)
"Naw naw, Mortie! You listen to me! We aren't goin' out there again unless we get a bigger cut, plus 2 squares per day while on these shoots. (listens then resumes talking)
"Uh-huh....uh-huh. OK, look. You wanna play hard ball with me? Then you should know that I've been talkin' with them bulls over in Spain. And we have an agreement, an understanding. Unless you bunchagoofs meet our demands and them bulls too....then we might just hafta' boycott both events for 'da unforeseeable future and suchlike and so forth. YA' FEELIN' ME NOW MORTIE?"
(listens then speaks for last time in this call)
"Yeah, yeah. Tha's right. Wot I said! So look pal---you get back to me about all this." (hangs up without saying bye)
The horse then resumes his interview with the sweet young thing from National Geographic. First he inhales from his cigar.
"All right, where were we honey? Oh yeah, that incident at the Fest du Riz in Arles. Look, it wasn't my proudest moment, OK? See what happened was..."
I am done. The end.