06/14/2026
🐴 What an exhausting day 🥱
‼️UPDATE: The public rightly named our only foal so far this year: CODY. The name honors the Arizona representative, Cody Reim (R), who worked harder than we've ever seen anyone work for the Salt River wild horses! Regardless if you are an R or D, you have to appreciate that. Thank you Rep Cody Reim
Unfortunately his bill, SB1199, failed yesterday in the AZ Senate, - not because it did not have the votes, IT DID - but because the very Senator who gave Rep Reim the bill, then sabotaged it by NOT concurring to it. A jack 🫏 move towards an honest hardworking new representative in your own party, in our opinion.
(So the bill was never on the Governors desk, like some know-it-all pages reported, -->don't trust rumors or facts, unless u hear it from us! )
🏛 Yesterday, there were several Senators, both Democrat ( thank you AZ State Senator Lauren Kuby) and Republican ( thank you to State Senator Werner) attempting to save the bill by bringing it to caucus, where it could have been resolved, but after 13 hours of tireless efforts, the cattleranching lobby, who wrote letters dishonestly portraying the bill as a pause on ALL management, won.
📋Ofcourse SB1199 was not a pause on all management; the herd will still have a negative growthrate each year, because of our Fertility control program, and they will still be rescued when needed, because of our Rescue program.
📊We heard about how many legislators didn't have ANY idea about how well this herd is managed in partnership with the AZDA, or on how effective fertility control really is. There were claims that these horses were growing 25% every year, when the recorded fact is: the herd is declining by approx 4 % each year, without any removals!
🧬The bill was not a "save all the horses" bill. We did not support it because we are trying to "skirt" our responsibilities under our management contract. We supported it because it modestly asked for only a temporary pause on removals, so genetic science can take place first. Mankind just makes huge mistakes sometimes, when it comes to extinction, and its only prudent for the state to be sure to prevent that, BEFORE its too late.
💣The bill also contained very important added protection for Salt River wild horses AFTER they are removed. We learned only recently, that they will no longer be considered Salt River horses, after they leave their habitat. This is something we did not know before, and it really bothers us. Stripping them of their status as soon as they leave their habitat, means that a different contractor could be hired, who could then take them to slaughter auctions, without any consequences.
🚨This is always hanging over our heads, and it highlights how important it was for us to retain our management contract. Ofcourse we will work harder than ever, to keep these beloved horses safe and cared for! ( -->Luckily, JH and JM wrote a terrible proposal that the state couldn't possibly accept. We'll publish it sometime, since each of them is too coward to publish it themselves.)
🛟How we will make saving the Salt River wild horses possible, is another story, because it's going to be an ungodly expense to try to keep them together and responsibly house more than 100 of them, - preferably where the public can still come see them.
☔️BTW, The kind of jealous individuals, who claim that saving horses is lucrative or profitable, should not waste a minute and start their own horse rescue immediately. The very fact that they don't, tells you they know that is not the reality. Saving horses is an incredibly expensive and labor intensive endeavor, not only because of how much horses eat and need, but also because of the price of land in Arizona.
💪We will start discussing our lifesaving goals here soon, but we don't want to give away anything too soon, that our haters might want to prevent. You know we always have to think one step ahead, so stay tuned!
🐕 The last thing to say about this legislative process is that cattleranchers do not even have a dog in this fight, because there is no cattleranching at the Salt River; it does not affect them. If they care so much, they should in fact be very happy that there are not 1000 Salt River wild horses right now, and they should thank us for that.
😡In our opinion, this was the most dishonest way of killing a bill, because it denied AZ senators the opportunity of representing their constituents and having a voice in an issue that is extremely important to Arizonans.
🚦But on the AZ house side, representatives DID get to vote, and we were very proud of all the greens on the board. Only 3 Republicans and 7 democrats voted against SB1199. We will post those results later, out of transparency.
👊We appreciate and applaud our friend Susie Bell, one go-getter powerhouse lady, with no stops when it comes to standing up for the Salties. She and her group " friends of the Salt River Wild Horses" were in the gallery of the Senate the entire day, from 9.30 am until 11 pm. Thats dedication.
❤️We sincerely want to thank every legislator who tried to protect the future of the Salt River wild horses. We suggest to our followers that everyone ignore the reds on the board, but thank the greens profusely on their social media pages! First go ahead and stampede over to representative Cody Reims page, with sincere thank you's and kudos and likes!
🫵Please stay tuned on where we go from here!
P.S No form of AI was used in this writing.
P.S. Salt River wild horse Cody is doing great.
P.S. No partisan comments will be accepted on our page, as this is a fully BI-PARTISAN issue.
📷 by photographer and supporter Larry Naftzger.
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