Our Story
All The Kings Horses Equine Rescue is an animal welfare organization incorporated in the State of Connecticut. We are dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and placement of equines in need, assisting equines in situations of neglect, abuse or threat of slaughter. To educate the public regarding the standards of care required to maintain an equine as a riding partner and/or companion animal in a humane manner.
Since 2010 we have saved over 140 equines. We remain in contact with all of our adopters of our horses to ensure all equines that have passed through our rescue remain safe. We believe saving is the easy part and ensuring a “happily ever after” is true rescue. We provide all our horses with a safety net and will take back ANY horse adopted through our organization that may require an alternative placement.
Over 40 of our saves come from owner surrenders in our state of CT. We have been a resource to residents in our state who had to give up their equines due to financial restraints, untimely deaths and illness. We also work hand in hand with the CT Department of Agriculture taking in horses from active investigations and seized horses due to abuse and neglect within the state.
Besides playing an active role in helping the states most at-risk equines, we also actively educate the public on proper equine care and management. We are currently working with high school career training programs and act as a supervisor for college internship programs. We provide hands on experience and skills.
In 2017 we took particular interest in helping our American wild horses who live on our public lands. We created a “Wild Side” and were the first CT rescue who was saving Americans wild horses directly off of our public lands and those in danger at livestock auctions. We have established a wonderful relationship with the United States Forest Services, particularly the Alturas, CA office. We are currently one of their non-profit partners and they contact us if they need assistance with placing horses that might be difficult to adopt or with horses who have been adopted and failed their compliance check. This partnership is allowing the United States Forest Services to give a second chance to horses with traumas and disabilities who would otherwise be euthanized. We most recently took in a mustang with long hooves/foundered symptoms and a mustang with a luxated sacrum from the 2023 Devil’s Garden round up, a mustang with a severely broken nose with bone showing along with a torn labia and lameness from the 2022 Devil’s Garden round up, and a mustang missing part of its nose and mouth from the 2021 Devil’s Garden round up. It is our hopes to continue to assist these living legends by providing them the proper education to live healthy, domesticated lives or to live out their life in sanctuary which we are working hard on obtaining. Many of our mustangs have been adopted into great private homes and many are serving as breed ambassadors. Some have continued in great rolls teaching youth at the NYC Riding Academy, veterans at Healing Hoofbeats, LLC in CT, and psychotherapy clients at Soul Friends in CT, and Strides of Hope LLC in CT.
Pro-Active Management
In the beginning of April 2019 All the King’s Horses Equine Rescue Founder/President, Mary Santagata attended the Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) Training Program and received her certification in wildlife immunocontraception at the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana. What is PZP? Per the Science and Conservation Center “The Zona pellucida (ZP) is a glycoprotein membrane that surrounds all mammalian eggs. Certain proteins in the membrane serve as the sperm receptor. The contraceptive vaccine produced by the SCC uses the ZP from the pig, thus the name porcine zona pellucida. Briefly, the PZP is produced by a complex process whereby the ZP is removed from the ovum, its glycoproteins extracted, isolated, and converted into a vaccine. The vaccine stimulates the target animal to produce antibodies, which attach to its own ZP, thus blocking fertilization.”
Mary Santagata is currently an active participant and team member in the Red Dessert of Wyoming’s first fertility control program for the wild horses of Stewart Creek, Wyoming. Mary Santagata is currently volunteering with the Bureau of Land Management, Rawling’s WY district office on a strategy for reducing population growth in the Stewart Creek Herd Management Area in the Red Desert Complex. This is one of the only pro-active measures we can do for America’s Wild Horses. It is the hopes that this will reduce the need for round ups the horses can remain with their families on the land they call home. With maintaining the horses on the public lands, they call home, they can stay out of holding corrals and the hands of humans who may put them in harm's way.
In 2019 we made huge strides and are looking to grow, continue with our mission, and eventually have a sanctuary component. We are a top-rated nonprofit on Great Nonprofits and have a Platinum seal of transparency with GuideStar.
In 2021 All the King’s Horses Equine Rescue partnered with Soul Friends of CT. Soul Friends, Inc is a nonprofit established in 2003 with a mission to provide innovative clinical and educational programs that promote the healing benefits of the human-animal bond and nature therapy for at-risk children.
At our rescue Soul Friends is partnering with our horses and is providing individual equine assisted psychotherapy and grant funded group therapy. A shared office space is also provided at our farm. If you are interested in experiencing the benefit of the healing nature of horses, please contact Soul Friends, Inc for an intake.
All The King’s Horses Equine Rescue is run solely by volunteers with no paid employees. Our volunteers have full-time jobs and are full-time students and have full-time families. The time they put into our organization is what keeps us going.