'Crazy journey' reunites a missing horse with its family

After a days-long search spanning kilometres around the hamlet of Bragg Creek, Alta., a championship endurance horse was reunited with its family. 

Flex the horse was found southwest of the town Friday morning, lingering in a clearing near a trail in the Station Flats area.

Owner Rosalynn Peschl said she and her husband, Houston Peschl, felt "tremendous relief" upon seeing Flex standing in a forest clearing.

"By the time I had the halter on him and knew that he was secure, we both just started crying with relief and joy and all of the emotions that have been bubbling under the surface for the last couple of days," she said.

Peschl said her husband headed out for a ride near the West Bragg Creek Day Use Area on Tuesday. While he was saddling Flex, a bee sting spooked the horse, causing him to break his halter and run off.

Flex and Houston have a close bond, Peschl said, explaining how her husband bought the former racehorse 10 years ago.

At the time, Flex was anxious and wary of people, but Peschl said Houston worked to help him become more trusting.

"Houston refers to Flex as his best friend," Peschl said, adding the two are almost inseparable.

Houston eventually turned Flex into a champion endurance horse, and together the pair has competed in competitions across the prairies and the U.S., including winning a Canadian national championship in endurance horse riding.

After Flex went missing, Houston spent hours on his bike over the next few days searching the area for him, Peschl said. 

Following the Peschls' calls for information on social media, residents in the area joined the couple, braving hot and smoky conditions throughout the forest to search for Flex.

"Over Wednesday and Thursday, we didn't have any sightings at all," Peschl said. "That was certainly stressful, and a little bit disheartening."

Broadening the search

The situation became so desperate, professional tracker Terry Grant joined the search. 

Grant is trained in search and rescue, starring in the first six seasons of the Canadian reality television series Mantracker. 

"Man-tracking is a skill they use in search and rescue to help find lost souls," Grant said. "It can very easily be adapted for horses."

Grant said after seeing Peschl's post online he decided to offer up his tracking services to help find Flex.

"Another person up by Millarville called me and said, 'Hey, do you want to go on an adventure? Because everybody's saying they need a tracker,'" Grant said. "So I took the day off work and said 'Yeah, let's go for a ride.'"

A key part of tracking horses, Grant said, is being able to predict their movements while understanding they do not act the same way humans would. 

"Horses think different than we do. So you kind of go where there's water, where there's feed — if it's hot, where there's shade," Grant said.

Grant said search and rescue efforts often ignore animals, and as a cowboy himself, he knows how deep the connection runs between horse and owner.

"You have a very personal bond with a horse," he said. "I can understand somebody losing a horse — what they're going through — and it's not a good feeling. So if I can help somebody out with that, then that's even better."

Leaning on friends and strangers

On Friday morning, Peschl said a neighbour with a small plane was able to fly over the Station Flats area and eventually locate Flex. 

"It took us a few minutes to catch him, but once we caught him, he was looking and chewing and yawning, which is typically a sign of a horse being really relieved and letting go of a lot of stress," Peschl said.

Aside from some irritation from his saddle — he ran away wearing it — Flex has been showing no signs of distress, Peschl said.

"We've got lots of medical professionals in the community that will be keeping a close eye on him," she said. "But so far, signs are that he's in pretty good shape."

Those outside of the horse community have been overwhelmingly supportive, Peschl added, with people from as far as Germany reaching out to offer their support and advice. 

"There's a saying that 'a stranger is a friend you just haven't met yet,' and I felt that that was just so incredibly true," she said.

"These are friends I haven't met, even though they've been so tremendous and pivotal in this whole whole crazy journey."