The Horse Lover

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 dange