CHAMP & His Merry Mares

Beauty, Daisy, Duchess, Ginger, Gypsy Rose & Kat

Champ was a stunning Salt Wells Creek stallion, who was rounded up at the same time as Goliath and Maestro. He and five members of his family were driven by helicopters into a trap. We have the photographs of every moment of that last day of freedom for this family.

Goliath was in the BLM corrals for months before he was put up for adoption. He, Champ, and Maestro were inseparable at the corrals, keeping close together for comfort. We focused on Goliath, while another rescue was taking Champ and Maestro to keep them together. A few months later, that rescue asked us to take them both to give them more space and freedom.  They felt that Skydog would be the right place for these huge, powerful mustangs. We welcomed these incredible geldings, who their mares and family to keep them warm in their old age.

We searched high and low for Champ’s family. We looked in all the pens where they might be, but were never able to find any of them. We wanted to right the terrible wrong that was done to him. We gave him back his freedom and wilderness. Then we introduced a group of beautiful mares, who became his new family: Beauty, Daisy, Duchess, Ginger, Gypsy Rose, and Kat. 

Champ is a protective leader. The lesson that he took away from his experience with the BLM is that humans are best avoided. His band is elusive and he leads them away when people come into view. He loves his mares and takes good care of them. They are so happy with him, in fact, that other girls have jumped the fence to join his band.

#skydogchamp #skydogbeauty #skydogdaisy #skydogduchess #skydogginger #skydoggypsyrose #skydogkat

Beauty, a stunning seal bay, and her beautiful sisters, Duchess and Ginger, were rounded up from the Owyhee Complex in Nevada. The trio was among our earliest saves in 2016, our first year as a sanctuary.  The BLM branded these mares with huge numbers on their hips or bottoms to mark them for long-term holding and make it easier to identify them from a distance. They were also Sale Authority seniors, who faced an uncertain future. When Champ came to Skydog two years later, they were the beginning of his new family.

Daisy, a big power house of a Utah mustang, also came us in 2016. We first saw her on a Facebook page, where the woman who had adopted her was frustrated that she was not responding to training and was sending her back to the BLM corrals. There was something about her face, the look in her eye. For a week she had been dragging around a lead rope that was still attached to her halter. With the help of another girl, we adopted Daisy back out of the pens, where the rest of her herd had been shipped to long-term holding without her. This mare wanted to be wild and we were able to give that back to her. She never comes closer than two or three feet from people so she’s fine with Champ’s policy of keeping his family far from humans. 

Gypsy Rose was meant to be with us. Before there was a Skydog, I donated to save mustangs to go to homes, but there was no way to know where they ended up. (This one reason I founded a sanctuary that guarantees life-long refuge.) A rescue was fundraising to save Gypsy from a kill pen in Washington and I paid her bail.  Years later, a local rescue, Equine Outreach, had to find homes for many of their horses. We said yes to a family of Kiger mustangs. We were also asked take a horse named Gypsy for a month or so until her adoption was completed. When the adoption fell through, we realized this was the same Gypsy at the kill pen that I had paid to bail years before. She was back in a rescue after being adopted several times because she was quite the handful! Fiery and hot, she caused a fuss with other mares, but she knows her place in Champ’s band. He runs a tight ship, but his mares adore him.

Kat came to us in 2018, the same year as Champ. An Oregon mustang, she was rounded up from Murderer’s Creek. After she was adopted out, more than $10,000 dollars was spent on trying to train her with different people, but none of it stuck. Nobody got anywhere with her. When the adopter ran out of funds and ideas, she asked that we take her. Horses like Kat, who are troubled or dangerous because they cannot give up their wild side, need sanctuary. She is curious, but spirited and has no interest in humans whatsoever - a perfect mare for Champ.

These mustang mares are smart and beautiful with instincts honed sharp as a blade. Their spirits remain wild. We invest a great deal of effort into reuniting families from the range, but when we can’t do that, they form new families of their own. This band is Champ’s world, where family and freedom mean everything.

#skydogbeauty

American Mustangs and Burros Need Your Help

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and two Senators to urge them to support these bills. You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, commonly known as the “Farm Bill”. There are several important provisions for animals in that omnibus federal law, including the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act. It is currently illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. The SAFE Act would extend the ban to equines and shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 4356) The bill would eliminate the use of helicopters in rounding up wild horses and burros, and require a study into alternative methods for humanely gathering the animals.

Ejiao Act of 2025 (H.R. 5544). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at canned hunt ranches in Texas & Oklahoma, bringing an end to the BLM using Sale Authority to funnel wild equines into the slaughter pipeline, and stopping production of Premarin & other drugs made from pregnant mare urine.