Meet Gracie

Little Romeo
shadow
Gracie is a beautiful grey mare born wild and free in 2014 in the Arapaho Creek HA within the Red Desert Complex, Wyoming. Gracie was captured on October 16, 2020 in the Arapaho Creek area along with her stallion Ares and his large band of mares, weanlings and foals.

In the spring of 2021, one of our photographer supporters who has been photographing the herds there since 2014, recognized Ares, Gracie’s stallion Ares, at the BLM adoption. RTF was able to send our photographer to the government holding facility to look for some of Ares mares in an effort to give him back some of what he lost.

Thanks to one of her guardian angels, photographer Meg Frederick, Gracie was found among nearly 2000 captured horses in the holding corrals. Gracie and Ares were reunited at Return to Freedom’s sanctuary in August of 2021 after a year apart! Both horses were so scared and reactive and once back together It was as if they finally exhaled. Gracie has a calming effect on Ares.

In November 2021, we were able to find 2 more grey mares from the band. The four of them were reunited in December 2021 and are now safe at Return to Freedom’s sanctuary!

Arapaho Creek is also known as “the donut hole” which used to be recognized as a Herd Management Area but after the completion of the roundup in 2020, Arapaho Creek was zeroed out and made an HA (Herd Area) and is no longer a recognized HMA for wild horses. The Red Desert Complex encompasses 753,000 acres and has very harsh climate with rugged terrain. The horses are very diverse in color, type and size.

Your Sponsorship has a significant, positive impact on Gracie’s life!

Photography:

Ares & Gracie by Bari Lee
All other pictures by Meg Frederick.

More Pictures of Gracie