GREENVILLE, Texas—Hawk Reeves named her place Phoenix Pharms, after the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, because it’s where her rescued horses and other animals find new life.

“It’s the place where heaven and horses meet,” she said.

Giving animals second chances is a passion for Reeves, who has lived with husband, Paul, on the 80-acre property near Greenville since April.

“It’s the air I breathe,” she said, “the blood in my veins.”

Phoenix Pharms is home to six horses, seven dogs, four ducks, a dozen or so chickens, five cats, a goose and a gander whose wings grew upside down. Woofie’s owner was about to “put him out of his misery” when Reeves offered to adopt him.

But the horses are Reeves’ first priority. She said some of them were in bad shape when they arrived, skinny and sick with untrimmed hooves and fearful manners.

Visits to the veterinarian were long overdue, even for those that were registered with papers.

It’s not unusual to see pedigreed horses suffering from neglect, said Sharon Behringer, treasurer and show manager for the Lone Star Arabian Horse Club. She once volunteered with a rescue group for Arabians and saw cases where horses suffered when their owners ran into financial problems.

It’s a widespread problem, experts say.

“Horses are large, expensive animals, and sometimes they’re the first to be seen as luxuries that have to be let go when people can’t feed their families or pay their mortgages,” said Keith Dane, director of equine protection at the Humane Society of the United States.

And when struggling horse owners have to let their animals go, Dane said, that’s when Reeves and other rescuers step in. Last year, Habitat for Horses — which cares for 50 animals at its Galveston County ranch — helped rescue more than 70 horses from a property near Cash, a town south of Greenville, where officials alleged they were neglected and abused.

Rescue groups are a big help with cruelty seizures like that one, said Sandy Grambort, equine program coordinator with the Humane Society of North Texas in Fort Worth.

Grambort said her agency took in 101 horses in 2007. Seventy-four were placed in new homes, 20 were turned over to rescue groups, and seven had to be euthanized. It has taken in 73 horses so far this year.

Owners known as “hoarders” are a problem, Grambort said. In May 2007, she helped investigate complaints against an owner of 21 horses. Some were in awful shape, she said.

“Hoarding is a mental condition where people are collectors,” Dane said.

“People feel they are helping the horse by buying it, or they’re careless breeders. ... And the population outgrows the land and the grass, and they’re not feeding the horses and it becomes a crisis situation.”

That’s when the public usually becomes aware of a problem and authorities get involved.

Reeves said some of her horses came from hoarders, but she’s also on the lookout for “killer buyers,” people who buy horses for slaughter.

The last three U.S. horse-slaughter plants two in Texas were closed last year. But Dane said 40,000 horses a year are still hauled to plants in Canada and Mexico to be processed for food products sold in Europe and Asia.

The cross-border traffic has been going on for years but has grown since the American plants closed. And it’s not just old or sickly horses that make the trip. “The killer buyers, because they are buying for a foreign gourmet meat market, prefer healthy, fat, younger horses where the meat is tender,” Dane said. “They’re getting $20 a pound. They don’t want old, skinny horses.”

Vallentino, an Arabian stud, was a skinny horse when he arrived at Phoenix Pharms in March, Reeves said.

“He was so underweight you could count his ribs,” she said. “He hadn’t been groomed in several months and could not be touched by a human.”

In July, he won an open halter class in a show sponsored by Behringer’s Lone Star Arabian Horse Club.

Reeves takes pride in Vallentino’s rise from the ashes. But for her, the humane treatment of horses and other animals is a duty as well as a pleasure.

“It’s our stewardship from God,” Reeves said. “We take that serious out here.”