Guy the Alpine's Story:
Guy was rounded up by the contractor Rail Lazy H, hired by the US Forest Service, from his wild home in Alpine, Arizona! He was but through the notorious Cleburne Texas auction and sold to the highest bidder, which luckily for him, was us instead of the kill buyers that frequent that auction waiting to fill their trailers with unwanted horses to ship to Mexico to be slaughtered for their meat.
Guy is best friends with Integrity, and the two of them are SO bonded!! It's often thought that only female horses form close bonds with one another, but this boy is a great example of how that is just not true at all, and boys can form just as strong of bonds.
Guy wants absolutely NOTHING to do with people, despite having an extremely curious demeanor! That is okay with us- he is free to live his life on his own terms. He is strikingly gorgeous and uniquely colored as he is a buckskin who is slowly greying out. As the years pass, he will be lighter and lighter.
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The Alpine Wild Horses of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest have one of the most harrowing stories of all time.
Historians confirm that accounts of the presence of horses have been made in the Alpine Herd’s homeland since Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s expedition through the area in search of the Seven Cities of Gold in the 1540’s! These horses are remnants of the Spanish horses brought along on the expedition. Many of them carry heavy primitive markings, characteristic of old Spanish breeds!
In 2022 the US Forest Service, who manage wild horses living in National Parks, deemed that the Alpine Wild Horse Herd was further endangering an endangered ground mouse, and declared their complete removal.
Shortly after the removal announcement, there was a mass shooting where over 50 Alpines were shot dead in the forest. Several horses that now call Nirvana home watched in terror as they lost their families, including brave Guardian, who took in two orphaned babies after the shooting- one of which had been shot in the jaw and survived for many months afterwards. Several other hoses survived with injuries, wondering why they fell prey to such a madman. The people responsible were never caught, but it is easy to see that it was likely local ranchers who graze their cattle on the very same public lands where the Alpine Wild Horses lived wild and free. It was interesting that the cattle were still allowed to graze the area regardless of the endangered mouse….
The round ups officially began in late 2022 and the horrors the Alpines experienced only continued. Though we are grateful these removals were conducted via bait and trap instead of treacherous helicopter round ups, there was lots of suspicious activity and volunteers would often find horses dead with broken legs and bullet holes dumped not far from the trapsite. It was apparent that lots was going horribly wrong as the horses were pushed in the corral or into the trailers that came periodically to empty the traps and take the horses to the Rail Lazy H facility, resulting in broken legs and lots of suffering, with the gunshots that were meant to provide a faster end, often missing vital organs and resulting in more suffering.
By 2025, nearly all of the Alpines had been removed. Visitors to the forest have had a hard time finding any horses, and the last one seen was wondering alone, calling out trying to find any other horses he could join up with.
We are so grateful to be home to so many of these special, historic horses- providing them a future that otherwise would have been stolen from them!
