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Model, actress and animal lover Rachel Hunter Skydog Ranch is also home to burros.

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Clare Staples-Read saves mustangs around the world at Skydog Ranch.

Home on the Ranch

B Y M E L O N I E M A G R U D E RP H O T O G R A P H Y B Y J U L I E E L L E R T O N

There are some 67,000 wild horses and burros ranging on American public lands and another 45,000 in government “holding pens” throughout the western United States. If Clare Staples-Read has her way,

they will all find sanctuary where they can live as the wild mustangs did centuries ago—running in herds, free from the predations of humankind.

Staples-Read runs Skydog Ranch, a horse sanctuary in Malibu.

“‘Skydog’ was the name the Blackfoot Indians gave horses all those years ago,” Staples-Read said. “They were terrified of horses at first, but their chief told them that ‘sky dogs’ were sent from the old man in the sky to help and be friends with them.”

Unfortunately, modern society has little time for this symbol of the untamed Old West and even less space for them to run free. Thousands of wild horses are rounded up annually by the Bureau of Land Management and either auctioned off or euthanized if found to be unadoptable, in an effort to control the damage wild herds can inflict on delicate ecosystems. Like many horse lovers, Staples-Read finds this horrifying and unacceptable.

So she founded not just one, but two wild horse sanctuaries. Her Skydog Sanctuary in Bend, Ore., covers around 9,000 acres and is home to 60 horses she rescued, bought at BLM auctions

or saved directly from kill pens.“We spend a lot of time looking for them at our place in

Oregon,” Staples-Read said. “These guys can cover a lot of ground.”

Here in Malibu, she opened Skydog Ranch two years ago with husband Christopher Read and now fields 13 horses, seven donkeys and a barn full of other animals, like Lulu the lamb and a hybrid zebra and donkey, called a “zonkey.” Mares and geldings (“The BLM immediately gelds every stallion they round up,” Staples-Read said.) alike roam the hills in western Malibu, many having arrived half-starved, unmanageable and hours from being euthanized.

To introduce a few of the “residents”: Sequoia was a mare so injured that she will never be able to be ridden, but can live her life out at Skydog. Bear arrived having impregnated his two mares, Aerial and Goldie. He was gelded, but the mares foaled and now the five horses live as a family. There’s also 22-year-old Read who was found with a heartbreaking injury. The original owner had put on a halter and never removed it. Read’s skin grew around the halter, leaving a massive, crooked scar and exposing his naval cavities to the air. Now, Read runs halter-free at Skydog.

Originally from England, Staples-Read survived a “not-so-happy” childhood through horses and watching cowboy

movies. She came to the U.S. as a model, married, then “got unmarried,” and lived in Calabasas for years. Throughout, she said, horses have given her a sense of purpose and peace.

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“People are on their phones so much these days, they don’t realize the work ethic that goes into caring for a horse,” Staples-Read said. “You learn that horses have personalities and such intelligence. And then we betray them. There are a lot of parallels between how we treated the Native Americans and horses today.”

Staples-Read partners with military veterans struggling with PTSD and addicts chasing recovery, who are finding a way back to equilibrium by working with these horses.

Jon Kasik came to Los Angeles from Chicago “to get sober,” and has been working at Skydog for a couple of years, now managing the Oregon sanctuary. He started ranch work on the most basic level—mucking out stalls—and was struck by the forgiving and profound nature of the horses.

“For the first time, I broke down in tears,” Kasik said. “But that made me happy because it meant I felt something. These mustangs come from a place of trauma and you can see it in their eyes. I was at a place where I didn’t want to live anymore, so I mean it sincerely when I say that they saved my life.”

Kasik said he felt an instant affinity with the sky dogs. “Not doing drugs isn’t enough,” he reflected. “You have to fill that place with spirituality.”

One way Skydog funds horse rescues is by seeking sponsors. For about $100 per month, horse lovers can adopt one

of Skydog’s hooved residents. Staples-Read texts photos and videos of the wild horses to their sponsors. Eventually, she wants to open up Skydog Ranch to weekly Sunday visitors, who can see for themselves what patience, serenity and—most of all—love can do for her equine charges.

Managing the two sanctuaries takes all of Staples-Read’s energies. She laughed when asked how much she gets to enjoy her horses herself.

“I used to ride so much,” she said. “Now that we have so many horses, I never have the time to ride myself anymore.”

Nonetheless, Staples-Read is mindful of the power in equine therapy.

“We use only the gentlest horses for our therapy horses,” Staples-Read said. “They follow you around like puppies.” n

skydogranch.org; Instagram/Facebook: @skydogsanctuary