The Mustang Diaries: Phoenix Goes Home - The Goodbye We Work Toward

Some horses seem to take the long way home, and Phoenix’s journey certainly didn’t happen on anyone’s original timeline.

I first adopted Phoenix last summer, excited to bring this handsome mustang home and get started with him. Then came the government shutdown, which delayed my ability to pick him up. Once that was resolved, some internal issues with the BLM pushed things back even further. Then there was trouble finding transportation.

So we waited. And waited.

And then, finally, in March, Phoenix came home to us.

After all those months of waiting to get him here, I certainly didn’t expect what happened next.

Barely two weeks after Phoenix arrived, Ashley came out to meet some of the horses we had available for adoption. And she fell in love with Phoenix.

Sometimes you spend months trying to find the right person for a horse. Other times, the right person walks through the gate almost immediately. With Ashley and Phoenix, it was pretty clear that this was one of those times.

We started the adoption process right away following her visit, and Phoenix stayed here with us while we worked through his initial gentling and training. Over the following months, he learned what life with humans was all about and began building the foundation he would need for the next chapter of his life.

And last weekend, that next chapter officially began.

Phoenix went home.

Dropping him off made it obvious just how much thought, work, and excitement Ashley and her husband had already poured into preparing for him. Phoenix has a big pasture to call his own, an arena will be going up soon, and perhaps my favorite detail of all: there were lawn chairs already set up so they could sit outside and simply watch him settle into his new home. There is something incredibly special about leaving a horse with people who are genuinely excited just to be with him.

Of course, that doesn't make leaving easy.

I don't know that I'll ever completely get used to watching these horses go. You spend countless hours with them—feeding them, training them, worrying about them, celebrating their progress, learning their personalities, and becoming part of their lives.

Then one day, you unload them from the trailer somewhere else.

You make sure they're settled. You give them one more scratch. You say goodbye.

And then you close the trailer doors.

There is always something about looking into that trailer afterward and seeing the empty spot where one of our horses had been standing. No matter how happy I am about where they're going, it still brings this little sense of mourning for the horse I'm leaving behind.

But I'm learning that those two feelings can exist at the same time.

I can miss them even as I'm incredibly happy to see them go.

Because this is what it's all about.

The goal was never for every mustang who comes through our gates to stay here forever. The goal is to help them. To give them a foundation. To show them that people can be safe. To prepare them for life beyond our farm and, ultimately, to help them find people who will love them enough to give them a home of their own.

Phoenix's journey to get here may have taken longer than expected, but once he arrived, it didn't take long at all for his person to find him. Now he has a big pasture, an arena on the way, and a whole family willing to pull up chairs for hours just so they can watch their horse be a horse.

I'd say Phoenix did pretty darn well for himself.

He's one lucky guy.

Happy trails, Phoenix. We're going to miss seeing your face around here, but we couldn't have asked for a better reason to see that empty spot in the trailer. ❤️