King, the oldest horse on the Salt River, was given a dignified ending by our crew this morning, after he was found down and suffering.

This is part of humane wild horse management. It’s important not to let them suffer needlessly. King lived one absolutely amazing long life and we will tell his story below.

Celebrating a life fit for a King…

Duke, Earl, Queen, Princess, Marquis, Baroness, Emperor, Val, those are just a few of the names of King’s offspring roaming the Salt River. His DNA will be running through the Salt River herd, like the Salt River herd will be running through the Salt River, for a long time to come.

This old boy lived the wild and free life, to the absolute fullest. Imagine all the things he’s seen and done, doing whatever the heck he wanted to do. Driven only by his instincts, with no restraints and no one telling him what to do, he determined his own path and his own fate, his entire life. Never having been chased by helicopters or chased by cowboys, he knew nothing other than true freedom.

To get to an old age like that in the wild, imagine the natural things he has survived; the many battlewounds from protecting his large family, the drought years before there was an emergency feed program (* activated during drought). Plus, he survived all the unnatural things in his environment, like the widening of the road, back when there were no fences, and no SRWHMG to help them cross. He also survived all the downed old barbed wire (from the old allotment) that used to be everywhere, before SRWHMG picked it all up. And he survived both strangles and VSV when those diseases ran through the herd several years ago.
Only those of you who have been visiting the river for many years, will remember King and Queen’s large band and their lieutenant stallion Gandolph. Their favorite territory (*or home territory) was the area of Water Users. While Gandolph passed away many years ago, Queen is still alive and is up there in age as well, she is now with lead stallion Tron.

King was from the old school, he never liked people very much, and he knew exactly how to avoid them. That’s maybe why you didn’t see a lot of pictures of him on our photography pages.

Here is a picture of King from 2019 by SRWHMG Director Destini Rhone, where you can already tell King’s age by the greying of the skin above his eyes, and that’s 5 years ago! We expected that after losing his band, maybe he’d live another year or so, but he didn’t think so. He roamed around contently as a retired stallion, and would make a friend here and there along his way. In the second picture by SRWHMG director Rick Blandford, King is hanging out with Neiman. (*Neiman is still alive and well also)

During this last year, we could tell he was losing a lot of his muscle tone and vigor, so we kept a close eye on him and it made us happy that he was allowed to come along with Spirit’s band (*offspring of Wisdom). We’ll post a little video of that later, since we can’t post a video at same time as pics.

All in all, it was a life fit for a King and a gentle death that only few wild horses in the world can be provided through humane wild horse management.
28 years of freedom, family, love and thriving off of the land. Never harming anyone and never costing anyone a dime, it was a life we wish was possible for all wild horses of the world.

The road towards humane wild horse management is long, but it leads to a happy public, a happy government, and happy wild horses. Please spread our message and share this post to honor and celebrate King’s life and legacy. Rest in Peace old beautiful boy.

Run forever free, beautiful old King!

Sincerely, for freedom for all wild horses everywhere, SRWHMG.