California Owner asks help finding Mustangs

As Reported By
Julian J. Ramos/Staff Writer | Santa Maria Times | May 4, 2007

It may be called Paradise Road, but it hasn’t felt like paradise lately for Lisa Rawling.

Since April 15, two of her mustangs have been missing from the Treloar family property on Paradise Road.

Efforts to find the pair of mustangs in the surrounding area have been unsuccessful.

“No tracks or hoof prints,” she said. “It’s a mystery how they just disappeared, unless they were picked up.”

The palomino, Sonny, and bay-colored mustang Blue Gene, were adopted from the Bureau of Land Management, and both feature a freezebrand tattoo on their necks for identification. Both mustangs are still considered wild, she said.

They were last seen in a pasture on the property by her husband, Julio Juan Gonzales. The horses, both 11 years old, have been on the property since 2000.

“We don’t know what happened,” Rawling said.

Rawling was in Massachusetts when she got the call from Gonzales that they were missing. He had seen them grazing in the pasture two hours earlier.

“I was in a state of shock,” she said. “Disbelief.”

Blue Gene, Rawling said, has a lot of personality with a “gentle soul you can see in his eyes.” Sonny, a saddle and pack horse, is a character, she said.

“He has to think about a situation to be comfortable,” she said.

They may have wandered onto the 32,000-acre Rancho San Fernando Rey cattle ranch across from the property, Rawling said.

“I hope and pray they are out there … I wouldn’t wish this on anyone else,” she said.

With the help of her sister, Paula Delaplane, in Florida, Rawling has made calls to auction yards throughout the Central Coast, California and Western states. The horses’ distinctive freezebrand tattoo, a series of coded numbers, would make them easily recognizable, she said.

Rawling said she’d to like thank everyone who has helped in the searches and local businesses who have posted the missing mustangs flier.

Rawling has offered a $1,000 cash reward for the return of the horses. She asks anyone with information to call 448-7114 or to contact the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department at 681-4100. She can be e-mailed at missingmustangs@aol.com. Pictures of the mustangs and information have been posted on http://www.netposse.com.

The couple, who live in Solvang, have four other mustangs and a half mustang on the property.

“If anybody can make it, it’s those two,” she said.

Julian J. Ramos can be reached at 688-5522, Ext. 6008 or jramos@syvnews.com.