I was lost, but now I am found...

This morning, when the horses were being fed breakfast, a thin black mare was spotted standing by the Duplex's outer fence. She was trying to get to the hanging feed bucket on the fence...

It looks like a horse who was dumped in the desert. Five days ago, we were contacted by a neighboring ranch who had been told by Power Company workers who were working on power lines in Sandy Valley, that some loose horses had been spotted in the Valley. But, we never saw any, nor did the neighboring ranches on our side of the Valley, and no one came looking for their loose horses. We all just assumed that it was someone's horses who had gotten loose and were eventually caught (with all of the ranches in the area, this does happen from time to time).

Then, this morning, there stood this mare. She is in very poor condition and had cactus spines in her legs. She was very dehydrated and hungry. She let us walk right up to her and bring her into the gate. We don't know what happened to the other horse or horses who were seen by the power company workers. There isn't a sign of them anywhere.

There she stood, right by the feed bucket.

Please let me in...

We moved her into the Medical area where she promptly drank water and ate some hay.

She was pretty stressed but with some quiet time, clean water and food , she settled down a bit. She is a very friendly mare. She does have shoes on her front hooves, but her hind hooves are over grown. She is very thin and approx 8-9 years old.

Poor girl, what a story she could tell.

This is her brand- can anyone out there research it for us? We think the two numbers on the bottom are 8 and 5, so we have named her "Ochocinco" (eightfive in Spanish and the name of one of the latest Dancing with the Stars contestant!)...