Cortez – Fortunes changed this week for a wild palomino stallion, a sorrel mare and their gold colt, rounded up last week because they strayed out of the fenced-in Spring Creek Herd Management Area.
Normally, the horses would have been separated. But this tiny outlaw band from southwestern Colorado gained some notoriety and allies who see wild horses as a symbol of American freedom and the spirit of the West.
Horse advocates from Wyoming to Illinois have moved mountains of Bureau of Land Management paperwork so the three horses can live together on a ranch, at least until the colt grows up.
“There is so much that is sad and hard in the world, but sometimes I run across a situation and think, ‘If I work really hard at this, I can fix it,”‘ said Valerie Kennedy, a Chicago mother who also has a home in Boulder. She called the BLM.
The palomino and his band now appear bound for a ranch in Wyoming owned by a benefactor who wants to remain anonymous.
There the horses will have as much freedom as any of Colorado’s 800 wild horses.
“I’m told I should run the wild horse program like any livestock operation,” BLM manager Fran Ackley said. “But we manage human emotions more than livestock. Even somebody living on the East Coast who will never see a wild horse wants to know they’re still running free in the West.”
Running free is a relative term because wild horses, roughly 33,000 in 10 Western states, are confined to herd management areas of various sizes. The horses at Spring Creek – one of five wild horse herds in Colorado – are kept within 22,000 acres of desert rangeland they share with cattle and antelope.
The BLM recently gathered up 91 horses of the Spring Creek Herd, which every four years or so grows too large for its food and water supply.
The BLM released 40 of the horses back to the range. People adopted 28 horses. One broke his leg and was put down. The others, including the palomino band, were sent to the BLM’s wild-horse facility in Cañon City.
BLM managers said the palomino’s band had to leave the range because they kept escaping into the San Juan National Forest and occasionally grazed on private land.
But during the gather, the palomino stallion, a fierce and able protector of his foal, earned the grudging respect of wranglers and mention in a Denver Post story.
“I’m hoping this story has a happy ending,” said Kennedy, who has been joined in the cause by other horse advocates. “All of us are now focused on getting these three animals out of harm’s way. ”
The BLM would have offered the 4-year-old mare and colt for separate adoptions once the colt was weaned. But the 11-year-old stallion faced an uncertain future. He is over 10 and therefore eligible for either transfer to a sanctuary or for sale by the BLM. The agency strives to avoid selling horses to those who would have them slaughtered for European meat markets, Ackley says.
But the BLM can’t control or know the long-term outcomes of sales, says Chris Heyde, executive director of the National Horse Protection Coalition.
Kennedy said that when she took on the palomino’s cause and tackled negotiations with BLM officials, she found them surprisingly sympathetic.
“I admire what she’s trying to do,” Ackley said. “But there are some realities. The stallion’s 11. He won’t be gentled. I hope the place he’s going has a stout fence.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
