Horse Found Wandering on Simi Freeway Had Been Stolen

The mystery of how an Arabian horse came to wander onto the Simi Valley Freeway this week has been solved. The answer: Horse thieves.

The horse, a 5-year-old gelding named Pony, had been in the custody of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation since Monday, when a group of motorcyclists spotted the horse trotting along the freeway. The bikers herded the animal down the Reseda Boulevard off-ramp and authorities caught the horse at a Northridge gas station.

Animal regulation officials were puzzled for days because no one in the immediate area reported a missing horse.

Detective Richard Schilling of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department called animal regulation officials Friday morning after reading newspaper accounts of the horse’s plight. Pony had been reported stolen Monday morning from a ranch in Brown’s Canyon above Chatsworth, at least three miles from where he was captured.

The horse’s owner, Nancy DeVries of Burbank, told authorities that the animal was a one-person kind of horse--the kind that would run away from strangers, as Pony apparently did when the thieves tried to cart him away.

John Sienkiewicz, 39, Pony’s trainer, said he and DeVries were both “really upset” by the theft of the horse.

“I’ve been working with and training with this horse since he was a baby. So I’ve had a long attachment to him,” he said. “But I’m not surprised he fought the thieves so hard. He’s a tough little horse, and I taught him a few little tricks to resist.”

What may never be known is how the horse found its way onto the freeway. “Tried to hitch a ride, I guess,” Schilling joked.