Celebrating the Life of a friend, Tatjana Patitz Legacy Fund

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Credit under video: Photo and video by Kurt Iswarienko for Milenio Magazine, at Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary in San Luis Obispo, California 2021.

Your donation to the Tatjana Patitz Legacy Fund supports Return to Freedom’s wild horse and burro conservation work, and provides for the over 450 wild horses and burros at our sanctuary as well as our educational activities and events.

Return to Freedom is a national non-profit wild horse advocacy and conservation organization which also operates a sanctuary for over 450 wild horses and burros displaced from their ranges due to government roundups.

On January 10, 2023, a very special friend of ours left this world. 

Tatjana Patitz has been a longtime friend and spokesperson for Return to Freedom and America’s wild horses and burros. Her love extends to all creatures great and small, but horses have held a very special place in her heart.

Tatjana Patitz first reached out to Return to Freedom after reading an article in People Magazine in 2003. She quickly became an active spokesperson for the organization and a close personal friend of Founder Neda DeMayo.

“Tatjana was a very close friend and I will miss her love, compassion, wit and humor,” Neda DeMayo, RTF Founder and President,

“She loved roaming the oak forest and the rolling hills at Return to Freedom’s Sanctuaries in Lompoc and San Luis Obispo California and sharing the sanctuary with her friends”.

Always an activist for creatures of land and sea, as a lifelong equestrian, she held a special place in her heart for horses, faithfully caring for her beloved Andalusians. 

Tatjana did what she could to shine her light on Return to Freedom, the many hundreds of horses and burros at our sanctuary and our advocacy work to end horse slaughter and change policies so that wild horses could be free on the range. 

The world knew her as a fashion icon, to me she was my big sister. Like me, she was passionate about nature and animals, with a deep love for horses. Tatjana left us way too soon, but her legacy will continue to make the world a better place for the causes she cared about”, said Tatjana’s sister Sophie Pollmann.

Return to Freedom was asked to create The Tatjana Patitz Legacy Fund to support our wild horse conservation, educational activities and events.