Manatee County homeowner says horse 'disappeared,' sheriff's office investigating
MYAKKA CITY, Fla. - A horse owner in Manatee County is pleading for help to find her family’s missing horse.
Connie Smith said her rescue horse, Cloud, has been missing for at least four days, but she said there are no signs of it escaping. She believes Cloud disappeared Thursday night.
Smith said her husband went to feed their horses around 9:30 a.m. on Friday and noticed Cloud wasn’t there.
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"My husband walked in the house and said, ‘Can’t find Cloud,'" Smith said.
Smith rescued Cloud, a white mare, 12 years ago. She’s trained as a beach horse, but has been recovering after she was in a trailer that was involved in a crash in November.
Pictured: Cloud, the horse.
"When she is wet, she does have blue underlying," Smith said. "She has paint markings."
Smith and her family have raised many horses on their property in Myakka City, but she said nothing like this has happened before.
"She’s not just a horse to us," Smith said. "She’s a family member."
Since Cloud disappeared, Smith and her family have searched their property and the neighboring properties, but have seen no sign of Cloud.
"Driving through the woods, the fields, everywhere," she said. "No trace of her. Nothing. We can’t find anywhere she got out. None of our fences are down."
Smith said that since Cloud is a herd animal, if she had gotten out, they would expect her to be grazing in a pasture nearby.
Pictured: Cloud, the horse.
"And, we just have no clue where she’s at, whatsoever," Smith said. "We’ve exhausted everything. We’ve had drones flying."
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On Monday, Trey Larson, with Florida Game Recovery, flew a drone with an infrared camera over the area in and around Betts Road, searching for a sign of Cloud. He said the drone can detect heat signatures on people and animals.
"We’ll scan the area looking for the living animals, and then once we find one, we switch over to the zoom camera, and we zoom in on the animal and see if it is the missing pet," Larson said.
However, Larson said a situation like this isn’t common. He said typically, if a horse ran away, it would come back or be nearby.
"I’m now extending the search farther and farther, because we’re not finding her close to the residence here," he said.
Smith said they have security cameras around their vast property, but she said they took them down to charge the day before Cloud went missing.
Pictured: Cloud, the horse.
As the search for Cloud continues, Smith fears the worst.
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"That she’s been taken for meat," she said.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office is investigating Cloud’s disappearance, but right now, it says it doesn’t have any evidence of criminal activity.
The sheriff’s office said it is taking this search seriously. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said deputies will be talking to neighbors and are looking for tips about Cloud’s whereabouts.
"If someone does have her, we hope they took her to love her," Smith said.
Smith hopes someone has seen Cloud and can help get her back home safely. She said their family is offering a reward for information leading to Cloud.
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