'She's Devastated': Mother Horse Visibly Depressed After 4-Day-Old Colt Stolen
FORT LUPTON, Colo. (KCNC-TV) - A four-day-old colt's life could be in jeopardy after thieves stole the young horse from a remote farm in Colorado's Weld County. The colt, or foal, nicknamed "Gypsy" after its breed, was taken by thieves in the late hours of Tuesday, April 20 and the early hours of Wednesday, April 21.
Gypsy was first reported missing by its owners on Wednesday morning after its mother "Trixie" was seen without her colt nearby. "Your heart stops," says Caitlin Hladky, the owner. "He was here at night. But in the morning, he was gone."
Hladky fears the colt will die without the nutrients provided from Trixie's milk. "I don't think he can live very long," Hladky told KCNC-TV's Dillon Thomas.
Hladky first realized he was missing when she woke up to find Trixie walking the farm without Gypsy nearby. In the four days since Gypsy was born, he was always with Trixie. Hladky knew he wasn't on the property stuck somewhere because Trixie would have been near him.
However, she did notice Trixie continuously returned to one place on the property. "She, all day, just kept coming back to this corner. If a mom loses their baby, they will go the last place they saw it," Hladky says.
Weld County deputies were dispatched to the property. In the same corner Trixie was roaming in they noticed footprints in the mud. Alongside the footprints were small hoof marks left by Gypsy. The prints lead out of a gate and to a small dirt roadway where it is presumed the colt was taken by vehicle elsewhere.
"(Trixie) is devastated. He never left her side," Hladky says. "It is really sad somebody would take it from her, not us."
KCNC-TV was on the property as a hound was brought in to trace the scent of either the suspect or Gypsy. The hound followed the scene down the driveway of the farm, onto a dirt road, to the highway and eventually to a building on an undisclosed property.
From public property, the missing colt was not seen outdoors on that property. Hladky is considering next steps with the investigation.
The colt, worth more than $12,000, was so new that it wasn't insured yet. Hladky says the money was not the concern. Rather, they're more focused on the health of the colt and his mother.
"If we could get him back, that's all we want. We don't care about the money," Hladky said. "We just want to give her a baby back."
Rewards are being offered for information that would lead to the colt or an arrest.
Hladky says she would gladly accept the horse back with no questions asked, so long as the colt was returned in good health. She says sometimes people will take colts to assist with other situations involving horses at other properties. She even offered to help the suspect with their horses if it meant she could safely get Gypsy back.