It turns out that Harry the horse didn’t ride into the sunset with a couple of thieves.
Weeks after the life-size fibreglass horse was snatched from the Kelowna tack shop that had been his home for the better part of 30 years, he is back home.
It’s thanks to Lisa Guyot that Harry was spotted. She was cycling along Bear Creek Road, she said, when she spotted a tarp discarded in an abandoned orchard.
“Went to investigate and it was Harry the fiberglass horse stolen three weeks ago from Diamond H Tack on Kirschner Road. Now he’s back safe and sound where he belongs,” Guyot said in an email.
Tracey Atherfold, a longtime employee of Diamond H Tack, said when they got the call about Harry being discovered, the flatbed truck was dispatched to retrieve him.
“They brought him home with police escort, of course,” she said.
Harry is now back in front of the shop where he belongs, albeit a little more dinged up than he was before his misadventure began.
Atherfold said her best guess as to why he’d been dumped is that whoever it was must have been spooked when the community started sharing the story of his theft.
“Everybody knows Harry,” she said. “Harry has been around for eons from the kids starting off first riding to now everybody, even people who are not horse (oriented), going, ‘Oh my God, you got your horse back.’”
Atherfold said Harry “is part of the family” and they are going to apply a few extra safety measures to ensure he isn’t stolen, including a bolt to the pavement where he hangs out during the day.
“Hopefully this will never happen again,” she said.
“ Harry’s an antique…. I believe he was from the 1950s, but he’s priceless to us.”