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Many people in their 60’s think about slowing down but for Dayton it was when he STARTED on one of the most challenging projects in his life.– Deb Black, Publisher, Today’s Horse Magazine, and Board of Directors of the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary
“I had sworn that wild horses couldn’t drag me away from Yamsi but they ended up doing just that. I turned the ranch over to my family and took off to pursue my dream. All too suddenly, I left my friends and livelihood behind to get those wild horses [in a BLM holding facility near Lovelock, Nevada] out of the dust, disease, and boredom of the feedlots, and let them run free on better land than they had seen this century.
I found that range in South Dakota.
Why me? Because I owed wild horses something! I have one ache and one pain in my body for every horse I ever met, but so many memories and so much joy. I was maybe fourteen when I rode my horse up over a lava rim rock and surprised a wild horse family dozing on a spring meadow near Fuego Mountain south of Yamsi. They were all grullas, blue velvet mares and a blue velvet stallion, all with black dorsal stripes. One moment their hooves rung bell-like on the lava table rock, then the next they had vanished into lodgepole thickets, and only the snapping of branches and a pale shroud of pumice dust marked their passing. For years I rode those horses in my dreams.” – Dayton O. Hyde, Pastures of Beyond
Dayton Hyde pestered congressmen and government agencies to support a sanctuary for wild horses in South Dakota. His persistence paid off with the opening of the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in 1988. Seen here riding Lark, one of the four wild
mustangs he personally adopted. Lark is one of our sponsorship horses and the last one of the original horses left.