Phoenix & Ghost

The story of Phoenix and Ghost is a love story for the ages and one which has now been shared by over 15 million people thanks to The Dodo. We originally saw a photo of Phoenix taken by Steve Paige of the American Wild Horse Campaign during the Warm Springs roundup. Phoenix jumped the six-foot-high panels in the trap he and his family were driven into by a helicopter. From a standing start, he lept for freedom and made it but then refused to leave his family behind. He was captured and lost them anyway. We went to the BLM corrals to find him and his family and managed to see him and get his tag number. We were told he was to be turned back out to the wild but we would go and visit him and tell him he was going to be free again soon. After a year I went to visit and found him alone, his friend gone, and now the plan to release him was canceled.

We applied to adopt him and we brought him to Skydog, this horse who wanted so badly to be free was going to get what he fought so hard for. We set him free on our 9000-acre ranch but always felt there was a sadness about him and that he was scanning the horizon for his family.

Phoenix was home and safe but my heart still hurt for him and I would always look for his mare whenever I visited the corrals, taking photos with a long lens trying to find his mare for him but they had been rounded up a year before so i figured she had been adopted out. But I still searched.

A full two years after the roundup and their separation I was looking at the internet adoption and saw a mare who looked familiar. I looked and looked at the old photos and the ones on the adoption page and checked every mark and spot. And it was her. We named her Ghost as she vanished and appeared like a ghost. We went to pick her up and the reunion was one of our happiest days. Ghost and Phoenix live happily together and we will continue to reunite families at the heart of our sanctuary.

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 Senators and urge them to support these bills:

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.

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

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches and stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs.

Bills from the previous 118th Congress that we hope will be introduced again this year:

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 3656) This bill will prohibit the use of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft in the management of wild mustangs and burros on public lands, and require a report on humane alternatives to current management practices.

Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). 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.