Barbara Phillips turned a quiet need into a public conversation at Blue Sky Utah. Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation held its first-ever fundraising weekend for wild horses, with the effort centered on Phillips’ rescued mustangs and the care they require.
The three-day Stay Wild with Gracie weekend opened Friday with Sierra Ferrell at the Blue Sky Utah event barn. Phillips said, “If you don’t raise money, you can’t keep rescuing horses, and it’s something that I have to tell myself all the time because I don’t like asking for money, and I don’t even like asking for help.”
Blue Sky Utah and Saving Gracie
The weekend stretched beyond the concert. A silent auction and a live auction followed on Friday night, a Saturday workshop at Saving Gracie’s showed how the animals are cared for, and a farm dinner at Gracie’s Farm closed out that night. On Sunday, attendees toured the 150-acre property that is home to Phillips’ rescued mustangs.
Phillips founded Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation in 2014, and she said she had not found the courage to host a fundraiser in the past 11 years. Ferrell said, “When I heard about being able to come here and do this, I said yes immediately,” and added, “I want … to use what I have in my life to be helpful.”
Patricia Miller and Wild Free-Roaming Horses
The weekend also tied the fundraiser to a broader policy fight. Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971, and mustangs are federally protected and cannot be killed. Patricia Miller, executive director of American Wild Horse Conservation, said, “there are two sides of the house” and “Everyone agrees this system is broken.”
The system she described relies on helicopter roundups and holding pens to move horses off the range, then adoption after they are held. Miller said horses can enter the slaughter pipeline after being removed from the range, a reality that sits uneasily beside the legal protection Congress put in place more than 50 years ago. The fundraiser’s immediate result is simpler: it gave Phillips a first formal push for support, and it put the care of rescued mustangs in front of people who could help keep Gracie’s work going.
How much money the first-ever fundraiser raised is not stated.
