By Ellen Rosenberg           

Taryn Campana, who lives near Orlando, has a soft spot for horses in need. If she has room, she takes  in horses who need help, one at a time, rehabs them, and then finds them a permanent home. She had one open space a year and a half ago, when Clayton, her teenage son, spotted a picture of Leo. 

“We just fell in love with him,” Taryn recalls. 

Leo was eight or nine years old, a 16.2 hand gray Thoroughbred jumper. He was not in good shape.           

“He had been kept in a very wet pasture, so his feet had basically rotted,” Taryn says. “He was also underweight, which is typical of horses in need. He also had a lot of issues under saddle. He was a puppy dog to handle and work around, but try to ride him - he’d buck and rear. He was very defensive, a real problem child. Obviously, something had happened to him.”           

So Leo came to stay, and Taryn had a farrier work on his feet, but that was going to take a long time to fix - hooves grow slowly. Leo gained weight and started learning to trust people on his back. A little. Then things got complicated.           

“A horse I’d sold wasn’t working out with the new owner, so I brought him back home,” Taryn explains. “He was an alpha horse, and he just didn’t like Leo at all. I don’t have a very big setup, and the horses have to get along with each other. Leo was getting picked on. It was a very uncomfortable situation. So I decided to try to find a temporary foster home for Leo, until he’d be ready for a permanent home.”           

This was November, 2010. Taryn contacted a foster group that she’d volunteered for in the past, and they said they knew of someone who could take Leo for a month.           

“They said they’d checked this woman out, and I believed them,” Taryn says. “I contacted her, and she lived about an hour from me, near Tavares. But she said she’d be in the area and could stop by with a trailer and pick up Leo.”           

May (not her real name) stopped by a day or two later, seemed legitimate, and took Leo home with her. Taryn called and emailed regularly, and all was well. And then, suddenly, May seemingly vanished. Calls went unanswered, emails ignored.           

“I was panicking,” Taryn says. “I couldn’t reach her at all for two or three weeks. I contacted the rescue group and got May’s original application and tried contacting her background references, but either no one knew her, or if they did, the info was all bad. I was so angry and upset. I’d trusted May and this organization, and now my horse was who knew where.”           

Taryn called the police, who said it was a civil matter, so she filed a civil complaint. But all of that would take time, and Leo was still missing.           

“I had May’s address, but I was afraid to drive out there,” Taryn says. “She lived in the middle of nowhere. Once in a while she’d text me that she’d call, but then she didn’t. It was very weird. I was afraid she’d find out I was coming and hide him or sell him, and then I’d never find him.”           

Then Taryn’s husband, Jeff, suggested that they contact Debi Metcalfe at NetPosse.com, Stolen Horse International. He had run into Debi at an event in Ocala three years ago, quite by accident. Taryn called.           

“So many of us are trusting. We don’t think bad things will happen. But once your horse is out of your sight, you have no idea what can go wrong,” says Debi Metcalfe. 

“We give horses away or lease them, and suddenly they’re not there anymore and no one knows where they’ve gone. For the most part, law enforcement can’t help, and you’re basically on your own. That’s where we can help.”           

Taryn filled out a report with NetPosse, offering a reward, and the alert went out, asking if anyone had seen Leo or knew anything about May. Taryn found out that May had a habit of getting horses under false pretenses and then selling them.           

“May was giving us the runaround,” says Debi. “She threatened to take me to court if the listing wasn’t removed. I responded that we were just trying to locate Leo and find out how he was and get him back. May was very defensive and hung up.”           

“Days later, out of the blue, May called me and said she was bringing Leo back,” Taryn says. “I told her I’d come and get him, but she wouldn’t allow that. She brought him back. His feet were worse, and he’d lost weight, but at least he was safe and back with us again.”           

“We were glad to help, and pleased at the outcome,” Debi says. “Plus, Taryn donated the reward money to NetPosse, which was so kind f her. It helps us continue our work of finding stolen or missing horses.”           

“The moral of this story is, don’t be too trusting,” says Taryn. “Do your own background checks. Usually, I’m a very trusting person, but this whole experience has made me not want to take in any more needy horses. I’m terrified of placing them in a bad home now. Thank God Debi and NetPosse were able to help. Without them, I’d never have gotten Leo back.” 

For more information, visit Stolen Horse International at www.netposse.com.

A special thank you goes to Ellen Rosenberg for writing this article for Stolen Horse International.