ON 11-23-1994, one day before Thanksgiving, Wild Horse Spirit received a telephone call from a fellow that worked at Cabin-In-The-Sky restaurant near Virginia City, Nevada. He was concerned that the "cats" would get a young horse that was all alone. He tried to contact other sources for help, but to no avail. Bobbi and Betty hooked up the horse trailer and drove toward Silver City. We turned up the road toward the restaurant hoping to find the young wild horse. Indeed, it was "right and perfect" as she was standing in the middle of the road as though she had been waiting us. As we approached her, she began veering away. Reluctantly, but knowing it was necessary, we gently roped her. She fell flat as she tried to jolt away. A small halter was put on her  as she lay in the sagebrush. Skye was so dehydrated, weak and shocky that it took both of us to lift her to her feet and out of the sagebrush. With one of us on each side and using a butt rope, we slowly walked toward the trailer parked on the dirt road. With a little patience and encouragement, we walked her up the trailer’s ramp into the trailer. She was coughing up greenish saliva. Her eyes were shocky. She needed medical attention immediately. Betty rode in the trailer standing close by her to reduce the stress of the ride down the winding mountainous road to the vet hospital in Reno.

    SHE was only three or four weeks old. She had been fending for herself but would not have lasted another day on her own. Infection was evident on her hindquarters, as a canine, likely a coyote, had attacked her. The vet started IV’s fluids, antibiotics. She was begun on warm Foal-Lac milk.

Once Skye became stable and gained strength, she came home to Wild Horse Spirit Ltd. where she continued to recover. For a few weeks, she continued to be weak and had difficulty just walking. As she gained more strength and tried to run, she would fall. But with time, she healed and recovered with the help of her friends, "The Spirits", particularly Taffy, and then Brite, who befriended her. For the rest of that rather harsh winter, Skye required a horse blanket and heat lamp in her barn stall which was next to Taffy. During the day, weather permitting, she roamed freely, socializing with the others. On her first day out and running with the other Spirits, we watched closely not wanting her to be hurt. Amazingly, Brite was running with her and behind her protecting her from the others.

   NOW Skye is a free thinking bay filly who enjoys running. She is our "Skye Spirit".

   JUST a word about her birth range. The Virginia Range wild horses are the horses that spurred Velma Johnson, "Wild Horse Annie", on a long crusade to protect wild ones from the inhumane atrocities inflicted by "mustangers" who made a quick buck by taking wild horses to slaughter.  The old movie, "The Misfits" with Clark Cable and Marilyn Monroe, reflected the cruelty that these wild horses endured.  And the movies was filmed in the Stagecoach NV area which gave the producers access to the free-roaming wild horses who lived there.  Eventually, the 1971 federal Wild Free Roaming Horses & Burros Act was passed into law as result of Velma Johnston’s long, unrelenting, hard work.  

Children were instrumental in convincing our federal legislators to pass this law. Unfortunately, there is no protection under the 1971 Act for wild horses who wander across an imaginary man-made property line from public lands onto "private" lands. The Virginia Range wild horses who are the progeny of those wild horses that inspired Wild Horse Annie on her journey and used in the "Misfits", staring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, were not included in "protected" herd areas managed by BLM.  These wild horses are politically labeled "estrays" and fall under the jurisdiction of  the Nevada Department of Agriculture.