ELK CREEK, Calif. - The sun was beginning to angle behind the hills when a pack of wild horses swept through a gap in the terrain, turned and watched as a second band galloped into view.
One mustang called out in the golden light. Another threw back its head and whinnied during a call and exchange lasting several seconds.
Then the herd of perhaps 80 horses blended together and ran off, their manes flying against a blur of rich brown in a scene straight off the rangelands of the storied American West.
"They're part of our heritage," says Sonoma Valley wine producer Ellie Phipps-Price, who rescued the horses from certain slaughter. "They're not a commodity. Just because something doesn't make you money doesn't mean it's not worth having."
Phipps-Price bought the 2,000-acre ranch west of Willows as a refuge for 170 mustangs she purchased at a July 2010 government auction, outbidding buyers who wanted to butcher the horses for their meat.
The sale marked her public entry into the emotion-filled debate over these icons of the American West. Over the last three years, Phipps-Price has leapt full-force into the fray over federal management of wild mustang herds, whose
50,000
members in captivity now outnumber those left on the wild by a margin of nearly 5-to-3.
With her backing of several lawsuits seeking increased protection of mustang grazing lands, a film in the works to raise public awareness of the issues, and a commitment to help change federal policies on wild horses, Phipps-Price is, she says, "all in."
"This is a problem that needs to get solved," Phipps-Price said. "If we can't come up with a humane, sustainable way to manage them on the range, they'll be lost. They'll be gone."
A mother of two and soon-to-be "empty-nester," Phipps-Price, 52, had a lifelong love of horses when she came to her new mission in late 2009. The instruments of her conversion were a
2006 Vanity Fair story titled "Galloping Scared," along with a book about the American mustang that had long lain on a shelf before she felt compelled to read it.
Phipps-Price was jolted by what she glimpsed of the mustangs' plight. Chris Towt, her partner in life, wine and horses, said Phipps-Price's decision to dedicate herself to the cause seemed to crystallize overnight.
"I remember you distinctly waking up one morning and saying, 'I'm going to do something,'" Towt recalled during a tour of the Glenn County ranch.
What Phipps-Price has done - in addition to studying the issues, conquering the history and coordinating with key players in the campaign to stop mustang round-ups - is produce a 70-minute, 3-D film slated for release this fall to spread the word about the state of the mustang.
In the back of her mind, she said, was "The Cove," a powerful 2009 Oscar-winning documentary about the secret slaughter of bottlenose dolphins in a tiny Japanese town.
But "American Mustang" is a less-graphic hybrid of documentary and narrative, she said. It features character-driven scenes introducing viewers to the mustangs' saga.
"The public needs to know what's happening," Phipps-Price said. "We need to create a sense of outrage."
The outlines of Phipps-Price's life wouldn't suggest her eventual alliance with a cause loathed by much of ranching industry.
She was raised between suburban Los Angeles and the Denver area, where she lived amid an extended family in big-business cattle ranching and mastered riding on fox hunts with the century-old, family-run Arapahoe Hunt.
She loved horses as a girl and first saddled up at about age 7 on her grandfather's cattle ranch, though she learned to ride English-style, because of the fox-hunting. She was a quick study, eclipsing the skills and interest of her two younger brothers, said the youngest, Lincoln Phipps. She continued lessons in Southern California, borrowing horses where she could.
As an English literature student at UC Berkeley and, later, working in San Francisco as marketing director for a restaurant guide, Phipps-Price's energies were focused elsewhere, and she took a hiatus from riding.
It was during this time that a mutual friend introduced her to William "Bill" Price III, whose business success and interest in wine grapes would play an important role in shaping her future.
The two were married
in 1988 and were raising young children as Price made his mark as an investor, eventually founding Texas Pacific Group with two partners. The company, later TPG Capital, would become one of the largest private equity firms in the world.
During a brief stint
in Connecticut in the early '90s, Phipps-Price acquired her first horse, a thoroughbred - a concession for having left behind her friends and life in California. She resumed riding with a new intensity, competing on the East Coast, and continued when she and Price returned to Marin County after a year.
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