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Southwest Book of the Year
Will Rogers Medallion Award Winner
New Mexico–Arizona Book Award for Best Memoir
Arizona Author’s Association Literary Award for Best Memoir He already owned and managed two ranches and needed a third about as much as he needed a permanent migraine: that’s what H. Alan Day said every time his friend pestered him about an old ranch in South Dakota. But in short order, he proudly owned thirty-five thousand pristine grassy acres. The opportunity then dropped into his lap to establish a sanctuary for unadoptable wild horses previously warehoused by the Bureau of Land Management. After Day successfully lobbied Congress, those acres became Mustang Meadows Ranch, the first government-sponsored wild horse sanctuary established in the United States.
The Horse Lover is Day’s personal history of the sanctuary’s vast enterprise, with its surprises and pleasures and its plentiful dangers, frustrations, and heartbreak. Day’s deep connection with the animals in his care is clear from the outset, as is his maverick philosophy of horse-whispering, with which he trained fifteen hundred wild horses.
The Horse Lover weaves together Day’s recollections of his cowboying adventures astride some of his best horses, all of which taught him indispensable lessons about loyalty, perseverance, and hope. This heartfelt memoir reveals the Herculean task of balancing the requirements of the government with the needs of wild horses.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Part 1
1. A Sexy Find
2. Opportunity Walks In
3. The Dream Takes Shape
4. Palomino Valley
5. Two Cowboys Corral Congress
6. Hard-Won Approval
Part 2
7. A Stubborn Start
8. Vying for the Upper Hand
9. In Training
10. Renegades
11. A Wormy Mess
12. Bound for Summer Grazing
13. Saber
14. Fame Finds Us
15. On Thin Ice
Part 3
16. Horses of Many Colors
17. Sorting the Seven Hundred
18. Order to Kill
19. An Unlucky Penny
20. At the End of the Day
About the author
H. Alan Day formerly owned Mustang Meadows Ranch near St. Francis, South Dakota; Rex Ranch near Whitman, Nebraska; and Lazy B Ranch in southern Arizona. With his sister, Sandra Day O’Connor, he coauthored
Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest. He and Lynn Wiese Sneyd also coauthored
Cowboy Up: Life Lessons from the Lazy B.
Lynn Wiese Sneyd is a published author and owner of LWS Literary Services.
Sandra Day O’Connor served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1981 to 2005.
Summary
The Horse Lover is H. Alan Day’s personal history of the first government-sponsored wild horse sanctuary, with its surprises and pleasures and its plentiful dangers, frustrations, and heartbreak.
