“Where do you get your book ideas?“ is a common question for writers. Terri Farley, author of the PHANTOM STALLION series, has answers that sound more like stories.
Farley’s young adult book FREE AGAIN tells how horse-loving teen Samantha Forster persuades a reclusive woman with lots of land to adopt a mustang mare who’s dangerously protective of her blind foal and other captive horses that the Bureau of Land Management has doomed for their physical shortcomings.
The story was inspired by Lauri “Palomino” Armstrong, a rescuer of wild horse orphans and other animals “beyond help.” Chilly Pepper Miracle Mustang Equine Rescue is named for the first foal -- orphaned by a lightning strike-- that Palomino saved.
Farley has worked with Palomino on real-life wild horse rescues. They collaborated to save the son of the real Phantom Stallion. The gray mustang was adopted, neglected and threatened with sale at a slaughter auction.
“Palomino is the queen of second chances,” Farley says, “She negotiated Phantom Jr. away from his owner without a penny changing hands. All we had to do was get him into a trailer.”
Another time, Farley provided overnight body heat for a chocolate-colored foal’s first night away from the traumatized mare who rejected him.
The two women provided hourly bottle feedings and the foal, now named Tex, survived to healthy adulthood.
FREE AGAIN and all Phantom stallion books are available online and wherever books are sold. At ChillyPepper.org, learn more about Lauri “Palomino” Armstrong’s rescue work.