Saving America’s Mustangs a driving passion for Del Mar philanthropist

As a child growing up in Iraq, Madeleine Pickens watched American Western movies and dreamed of immigrating to the United States. Among the images of the Wild West spirit that etched into her memory was that of mustangs roaming on the prairie. Later, as an adult, Pickens learned of the plight of wild horses in the modern American West — rounded up and confined to government corrals, or even sent to the slaughterhouse. “The idea of them running free and being gathered up by helicopters in such a traumatic style, being disposed of or warehoused by the government was such a sad thing for me,” said Pickens, a businesswoman and philanthropist, and wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. “So I got involved.” Pickens, who owns the Del Mar Country Club, founded Saving America’s Mustangs, a nonprofit foundation. So far, she has purchased two ranches in northeast Nevada totaling more than 18,000 acres, and she wants to use that land, along with some 600,000 acres of federal land surrounding her property, to create a preserve for wild horses. As part of her efforts to bring attention to her cause, the foundation has created a video appeal to Oprah Winfrey, and she shows off a group of mustangs she rescued at public events, from the Rose Parade to college football games. Her mustangs marched at the Del Mar Racetrack on Wednesday, July 20, as part of opening day festivities for this year’s race meet...more