Carol Walker is a certified horse girl. She owned horses growing up in Los Angeles, California, and after studying photography and literature at Smith College and psychology at Pepperdine, moved to Colorado in 1995 (where she still lives) and started a horse-boarding business. In 2000, she founded her own photography practice that focuses exclusively on horses. Living in Colorado put her in close proximity to the Red Desert Complex in Wyoming, where many wild horses roam the land and make their home. In 2018, she met Blue Zeus, the stallion that would become the focal point of her latest book, Blue Zeus: Legend of the Red Desert.
Walker has always loved animals. Before she honed her focus to horses, she traveled the world as a wildlife photographer, shooting in locations as far flung as Australia, Antarctica, and African nations. But in 2004, a friend of hers at a photography conference told her about the wild horses of the Red Desert Complex. At the time, there were tens of thousands of wild horses living on public lands.
“I just fell in love with them,” she says. “I was absolutely hooked. I kept going out and visiting these herds. Then I found out they were going to round up and remove most of the horses. I was absolutely heartbroken—I went and watched, and it was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen, seeing these horses I knew taken away from their families and their homes forever. I was, like, I have to do something; I have to help.”
A roundup by the Bureau of Land Management in 2005 herded many of them into enclosures, where they would be adopted by private owners, taken to sanctuaries, or at worst, sent to the slaughterhouse. Walker started advocating for wild horses within the year and published her first book, Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses, about the topic in 2008. She would publish two more books in the following years and sit on the board of directors for the Wild Horse Freedom Federation. But as wild horses become increasingly rare, she believes more advocacy is still needed.
Blue Zeus was an easy “star” for her fourth book—he’s stunning. A roan stallion with distinct blue coloring, boot-like white legs, and a thick, floppy mane, he was an instant magnet for Walker’s camera and 600mm lens. Walker has photographed thousands of horses, even the famous stallion Spirit, after whom the 2002 Dreamworks animated film is named, but felt a particular pull to Blue Zeus’ stoic nature.
“There are some horses that are just extraordinary. The moment I saw him, he was standing on a hill, and his family was around him. He turned his head, and I was, like, This is the most gorgeous horse I’ve ever seen! He just had that air of pride. I like to go visit the same areas and get to know the horses over time. I truly wish that he was still out there.”
In her book, Walker captures Blue Zeus in a variety of environments around the complex, which spans over 700,000 acres, with his family, which includes mares Hera, Nike, and Gaia, and offspring of various coats and ages, nearly all named for Greek mythology characters. Horses are social animals, Walker explains in text that accompanies her photographs, often in units with a single stallion presiding over multiple mares, their colts, and young horses who will eventually branch out to establish or find new clans. Walker uses both her images and written words to demonstrate that horses thrive in these natural environments, and government encroachment is a far bigger risk to them than to other animals.
Blue Zeus is an extraordinary horse and he deserved to have been left wild and free to live out his life with his family in the Red Desert of Wyoming,” writes Walker. “But all our wild horses deserve the same. They deserve our care and respect. They deserve to be managed in their homes with the least invasive and most researched methods available. We must speak out for them and create change to protect them. They are valuable in and of themselves and should not be a pawn for powerful political interests. Their wildness is a huge contribution to the soul of our nation and to those they touch with their wild spirits, their beauty and their freedom.
Kirkus Reviews lauds Walker’s intimate and gripping documentation of Blue Zeus’ way of life, writing that “the author’s homage renders the society of wild horses in vivid, evocative prose…The color photographs are vibrant and glowing, posing the animals nobly against wide skies and distant mountains and conveying their fearful kineticism.” The book spans multiple years of photos, documenting new foals born, older foals leaving, and scars Blue Zeus has acquired in fights with other stallions.
But despite her best efforts, Blue Zeus and his family did not evade capture, and Walker also chronicles their frenetic roundup by the BLM in late 2020 and eventual relocation to Skydog Sanctuary. Blue Zeus’ story within the book has a “bittersweet” ending, in Walker’s words, and she hasn’t been able to see him since. He and the majority of his family were thankfully able to remain together, which is often not the case.
In addition to her books, selling prints, and advocacy work, Walker has also taught workshops on horse photography around the world, from Germany to Dubai. Many of her students love the mythos of the American West and the movie-like images of wild horses galloping across open plains. She hosts a podcast on wild horses, Freedom for Wild Horses, to further disseminate her cause, and has hope that a new bill in the House of Representatives, the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of 2023, will improve conditions of these roundups for the animals that remain in the wild. She still makes the multihour drive to the complex to photograph remaining herds; in fact, she did so the day after the interview for this profile.
“Wild horses are a contribution to our lives,” she says. “They really are the spirit of wildness. I don’t want to have this library of photos of horses that are gone; I don’t want them to be just a memory. I want these horses to have good lives, lives that they’re suited for, not in holding facilities.”
Amelia Williams is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.
