SWAYZE
“Nickname”
Imagine, for a moment, you are a wild horse, born and living free with your family. You live in Utah, in an area called the Swasey Herd Management Area, a beautiful piece of wildness that your ancestors have called home for generations.
Then in 2020, your family and so many others are captured by the BLM and imprisoned, in ‘holding pens’ where families are separated, and freedom is gone. The wait begins, standing for day after day, for a solution that is beyond your control. But you are ‘adopted’ and leave. Now it’s likely that your new owner was taking advantage of of the program offered by the BLM that gives owners a $1k bonus after owning you for a year, and they can take up to five wild souls in this program. Once the year is up, your life is legally theirs to re-sell, and they get paid $1k for it to boot. This is likely, because by 2023 you are now with a rescue in Texas, and now you have a serious leg injury as well.
Being at a rescue at least OUGHT to mean that you are safe…but not with this rescue. After taking on too many horses, running into trouble with the law, and trying to get OUT of trouble, you and 79 other horses are SOLD BACK to a dealer, and you are in trouble again.
You are 8 years old, and you once lived free. What happened? And what will happen? Slaughter in Mexico looks likely until fortune smiles upon you. The good guys appear in your life, although you don’t know it.
Skydog Sanctuary had been watching the decline of the Texas rescue ROAR, and was heartbroken that the horses went back to a dealer and into harm’s way. To try to help at least some of these 80 horses, Skydog arranged for bidders at auction to rescue back some of the betrayed horses, and arranged in private for some other rescues to take over these lives, and offer true protection. And this is where Rosemary Farm Sanctuary becomes part of his future.
When presented with verbal descriptions of some of the horses, it seemed that a formerly wild gelding, with an injury that would prevent riding, was just the type of horse that we like to welcome. So we happily said yes, without knowing if he would be able to be saved, or be able to make the long journey.
Incredibly, both happened, and on a late winter night in the dark and snow, our newest gelding finally arrived home, to the mountains of NY.
Swayze is very intelligent, sensitive, a true mustang. They don't waste energy and they pick up every clue. They are survivors.
His photos do not capture how beautiful and elegant he is, a perfectly proportioned tiny bay. We are already in love!
As we look forward to getting to know this fellow, we hope that you can appreciate all of the efforts by so very many people to bring this boy to safety. These lives matter, and they matter to everyone. Mustangs are an essential part of our American Heritage, and are also part of the natural ecosystem, and are a potential connection from humans to the Earth. If we allow it.
We celebrate this mustang from the Swasey HMA in Utah, and hope that you support us. He has had an incredible journey that nearly ended in tragedy.
Swayze is:
• a bay Mustang gelding
• welcomed to The Sanctuary in February 2025
• a New Intake
• in transition *
• fun fact; XXXX
* Any equine that we are still evaluating and getting to know following arrival, is in training, or is changing in some way, is in transition. Please feel free to send an email to inquire about their status and future possibilities.