While Reese’s story is fictional, the events described in this novel are based on a real incident. On January 25, 1994, a military-sanctioned roundup of over 1,200 feral horses began on Canadian Forces Base Suffield. Those horses were called feral instead of wild because their forebears were originally domesticated horses that escaped or roamed, forming a herd that bred and became untamed. True wild horses have never been tamed, but for the purposes of this story I have referred to them as wild. I have also fictionalized the actual roundup for my story.
The Suffield wild horses roamed the military land for more than fifty years. In the early 1990s, arguments were made that the horses were destroying fragile grasslands, and the roundup began. Animal-rights activists opposed the roundup, fearing that the horses might be mistreated or sold for meat. Although the Canadian military put rules in place to try to protect the horses, there were later allegations that many of the horses, which were supposedly adopted legitimately, were slaughtered for profit. While these allegations were never proven, this scandal was the basis for Reese’s story.
Michele Martin Bossley is the author of a number of sports books for young readers. She is also the author of Swiped in the Orca Currents series. Michele lives with her family in Calgary, Alberta.
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