Two horses were stolen out of a pasture at a Julian horse ranch in a 48 hour period, the ranch said.
The Kenner Horse Ranch had two of their draft horses, Sasha and Moose, disappear last week. After thorough searches, they contacted police to report the horses as stolen and the San Diego Sheriff's Department is investigating their disappearance.
"They're our family," said Gina Pepper with Kenner Horse Ranch. "It’s like having a child missing. We spend a lot of time with them out here -- we train them, we take care of them when they're sick, we make sure they have blankets on them when they're cold and it is freezing, we count noses every night and morning, and if somebody’s missing, it’s an all-out search to find them. It's like missing a child."
Pepper said they first found out the horses were missing when they didn't come in Thursday morning for their feed.
"Immediately we thought, 'oh she found some green grass somewhere and got herself into a little predicament,'" said Pepper. Everyone started searching the property for the horses along the property line and the fence line all of Thursday and all of Friday but found no sign of the horses.
The owner of the 200-acre ranch, Kathleen Kenner, said she's heartbroken over the missing horse, both of which disappeared within 48 hours of each other.
"It's just killing me that they're gone," Kenner said.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"I looked for Sasha for two solid days and I had help from other people as well," she said. "I probably personally walked about 25 miles."
Moose is a young Belgian draft and Sasha is a Belgian cross. Both horses are not branded, tattooed or chipped.
Pepper said she thinks someone walked onto the property and let the horses out to sell them, she said. The ranch down near the border has mostly rescue horses on its property, though they are not a rescue facility.
Though numbers were not available from authorities, they said there have been other horse thefts in the area in past years. Kenner and Pepper both said they're keeping a close watch on their remaining horses, especially Grace, who hobbled back with a lame right leg the day after Moose went missing.
"One thought is if someone tried to put her in a horse trailer, she would have reacted really badly to that; sitting back, fighting, trying to run away," Kenner said.
The area near the ranch is surrounded by farms and pastures and Pepper said she has been warning her neighbors about keeping their pastures locked and making sure to keep their horses safe.
"I want to sit here with a gun every night and guard the gate," Pepper said. "I'm really angry."
Now, Pepper has a plea for anyone who might know of the whereabouts of the two horses.
"Let us have our babies back," she said.
If you have any information about the disappearance of the horses, call the San Diego Sheriff's Department at (858) 974-2327 or Kenner Ranch at (760) 473-5681.
