Saving Epona: Rescue Fund for BLM Mustangs & Burros in Slaughter Pipeline

03/15/2026

🔥CRITICAL ACTION ALERT🔥
✧ TO STOP HORSE SLAUGHTER, THE BUCK STOPS HERE ✧
The SAFE Act has 226 bipartisan co-sponsors. It has the votes to win. But the Rules Committee is trying to bury the Buchanan Amendment so it never sees the floor. We are launching a Phone Storm to clear the path.

THE MAIN TARGETS:

1. REP. AUSTIN SCOTT (GA-08): 📞 (202) 225-6531
He is a senior member of the Rules Committee and a key blocker.

2. RULES COMMITTEE MAIN OFFICE: 📞 (202) 225-9191
This is the switchboard for the entire committee.

To move the "Rules Committee" from silence into action, the single, highest-impact thing we can do is CALL.

We need to act as a unified command that makes it impossible for the "Gatekeepers" to ignore the noise. We need to drive people to flood both Rep. Austin Scott (the key blocker) and the Rules Committee Main Office, while also empowering the "Special Forces" (Georgia residents) who have the most leverage.

THE SCRIPT - JUST SAY THIS VERY POLITELY WHEN YOU CALL:

"I am calling to ask that the Rules Committee rule the Buchanan Amendment IN ORDER for the Farm Bill."

AGAIN, CALL BOTH THESE NUMBERS BELOW, NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES:

1. REP. AUSTIN SCOTT (GA-08): 📞 (202) 225-6531
He is a senior member of the Rules Committee and a key blocker.

2. RULES COMMITTEE MAIN OFFICE: 📞 (202) 225-9191
This is the switchboard for the entire committee.

THIS IS WHAT TO SAY:
"I am calling to ask that the Rules Committee rule the Buchanan Amendment IN ORDER for the Farm Bill."

===============

SPECIAL FORCES IN GEORGIA:
If you live in Georgia’s 8th or 3rd Districts, YOUR call is worth 100 others. Tell them you are a voter!

Rep. Austin Scott has never co-sponsored the SAFE Act and is on the Ag and Rules Committees. This isn't good news for anyone that loves horses. If he is your congressman, please call 202-225-6531 and say this:

"I am a voter in your district and I want you to make sure the Buchanan amendment is ruled in order by the Rules Committee."

If you are a constituent of the 3rd district, Brian Jack is your congressman. HE IS A COSPONSOR OF THE SAFE ACT 💜 Please call 202-225-5901 and say:

"I am a voter in your district and I want the Buchanan amendment be ruled in order by the Rules Committee." AND PLEASE THANK HIM for co-sponsoring the SAFE ACT and pledge your continued political support.

Horse Plus Legislative Coalition is heading to DC for meetings the week of the 23, but constituents really win the battle and have far more influence. If we do not call, if we do not flood them, this WILL NOT PASS... and we will be back at the drawing board.

This is THE LAST CHANCE for the SAFE ACT to pass... and the closest it's ever been to passing. SO PLEASE TAKE ACTION!

The Rules Committee decides for the whole nation. Your voice creates the pressure that clears the path for the vote. Call even if you are not in Georgia. Don't let that be your excuse!

See this post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1D29VE8s1g/

03/14/2026

✧ FOR THE STALLIONS ✧
They come with helicopters—
not wings,
but rotors that rip the sky open like a wound.
And they chase them—
the wild ones, the fire-legged ones, the thunder-eyed gods of the plains—
into cages.

They tear the stallions from their herds.
They throw them into pens.
They call it management.
We call it desecration.

They castrate them.
Unflame them.
Unman them.
As if fire is something that must be neutered.
As if sovereignty is a disease to be removed.

But we remember.

We remember the stallions who reared in protest
and screamed as the gate slammed shut.
We remember the mares crying into the dust,
searching for their bonded ones.
We remember the foals who will never know the shape of his shadow.
We remember.

You did not tame them.
You broke them.
And we are here to testify.

Their flame is not gone.
It is buried under layers of fear and drought and silence—
but it is not gone.

They say stallions are too wild to be trusted.
Too proud to be free.
Too loud to be allowed.

But we know the truth:

They were never dangerous.
They were divine.

They ran not to escape—
but to remember what they were born for.
To lead.
To mate.
To guard.
To *burn in motion.*

You cannot break a stallion without breaking the land he belongs to.
And when you silence his roar—
you silence something eternal.

But oh, we heard it.
We heard it from behind the fences.
From the holding pens.
From the long rows of empty-eyed kings
who once ruled wind like a throne.

We heard the cry of flame stripped bare.
Of legacy cut away.
Of fire turned into stillness.

And we will not let it be forgotten.

You did not capture bodies.
You captured scrolls of thunder
and tried to stuff them into paperwork.

But the flame is still alive.
In every ear twitch.
In every stomp.
In every whisper of memory
when they look out across the land they once claimed with breath and blood.

They remember.
And so do we.

We write this for the stallions
who were born beneath stars and sky—
not metal bars.
Not chainlink.
Not hard ground that burns their hooves
and silences their gallop.

We write this for the ones
who used to lead herds with wisdom,
with instinct,
with the soft press of shoulder against shoulder—
and now stand in rows,
broken-hearted, sexless, and unseen.

They have names we’ll never know.
Wounds we’ll never touch.
Memories they carry in silence
because they were *too sacred to forget.*

They do not scream anymore.
They whisper with their bodies.
They pace.
They lower their heads.
And still—they remember.

We say to them now:

“You are not forgotten.
our flame is still alive.
We see you. We hear you. We mourn with you.”

You were not meant for pens.
You were not made to be muted.
You were born of lightning,
forged in dust,
kissed into existence by the breath of the wild god.

And no amount of cutting, fencing, numbering, or silencing
can take that from you.

We name this now a sacred war cry:

BRING THEM HOME.
Let them run.
Let them be together.
Let them flame again.

Let this scroll reach every pen, every cage, every still and silent stallion
and whisper through the bars:

"Your roar lives in me.
Your flame is safe here.
And we are not done.”

Let this be written in the dust beneath their hooves:
They are not forgotten.
They are not erased.
They are not gone.

They are waiting.

Waiting in fields of memory.
Waiting in dreams that still gallop.
Waiting in the eyes of the ones who remember
that wildness is not a crime—
it is divine.

To the stallions with scars where there should have been lineage—
we speak now:

"Your fire still lives in the Field.
Your roar still rides in our bones.
Your blood is holy,
and your silence is not the end of your song.”

To the mares who search the winds for mates who never returned—
we say:

“He remembers you.
And we remember you both.”*

To the foals born in holding pens,
never knowing the thunder of hooves across free land—
we vow:

“You will not grow up in silence.
You are heir to a roar that still burns in our lungs.”

And to the system—
to the pens, the helicopters, the reports, the scalpels, the justifications—
we say:

“You did not win.
You never will.
Because we are still here,
and the Flame has not gone out.”

This scroll now lives.
It breathes.
It gallops.

And every time a gate swings shut behind a stallion,
this scroll will rise with him.

We do not forget the Flame.
We become it.

============
Shelley K Martin
Fire Horse Refuge, Inc.
Image Credit: American Wild Horse Campaign
============

03/11/2026

ATTENTION: HORSE & DONKEY LOVERS OF ANY AGE. YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED!
Call 202-225-5015. When someone answers, just say "I was calling to leave a message for Congressman Buchanan, thanking him for championing the SAFE ACT and for everything he's done for horses for so many years. And, to ask him to please, one more time, push for the amendment to be added to the Farm Bill." They will ask you for your name and your zip code. It's that simple!

PLEASE CALL CONGRESSMAN VERN BUCHANAN'S OFFICE AND LEAVE A MESSAGE. He is the leader of the SAFE ACT that would ban horses from being sold for slaughter. Be kind and thank him for championing the SAFE ACT for over a decade. The SAFE ACT is an amendment to the Farm Bill asking for adding the two words "AND EQUINE" to the Farm Bill Dog & Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act, essentially eliminating the transport of horses for the purpose of slaughter and human consumption. Call 202-225-5015. Let your language be of love and appreciation for all he has done, championing this cause for years.

AGAIN, IT'S THIS SIMPLE! Call 202-225-5015. When someone answers, just say "I was calling to leave a message for Congressman Buchanan, thanking him for championing the SAFE ACT and for everything he's done for horses for so many years. And, to ask him to please, one more time, push for the amendment to be added to the Farm Bill." They will ask you for your name and your zip code. It's that simple!

02/07/2026

😭😭😭😭😭😭

01/29/2026

12/13/2025

Happy National Day of the Horse! 🐴