Who Shot the Rose Bowl Parade Horses?
That's the question that investigators and the horses' shocked owners are asking after two Tobiano Paint horses and a calf were fatally shot in unincorporated Contra Costa and Alameda counties. The horses' owners are offering $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
The international animal protection group In Defense of Animals added $1,000 to the reward Thursday afternoon.
The horses, Choctaw and Lucky, had participated in Rose Bowl Parades and helped special needs children. Choctaw was found by the road where he was shot with a 22-caliber bullet. Lucky somehow made it to the other side of the pasture before collapsing from a single bullet wound.
"They're definitely upset," Sgt. Paul Beard said of the horses' owners. Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies received a report of the dead animals at about 8 a.m. Wednesday and responded to 7400 block of Collier Canyon Road, which runs across the Alameda Contra Costa county borders.
The animals were shot sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, but their owners said they did not know who killed them or why they were killed.
Two other horses in the pasture were not hurt.
The calf that was killed was from a residence on Collier Canyon Road in Alameda County, Beard said. No shell casings or stray bullets were found on the properties, though, Beard said.
