A carousel horse decoration that was stolen from Sunrise Ridge Resort in Parksville last month has been found and returned to the owners.
On Nov. 28, a string of thefts occurred to various businesses on Resort Drive in Parksville. Thieves nabbed Christmas decorations including seven lightup reindeer, a blow-up snowman and the carousel horse from three different locations.
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Sunrise Ridge Resort general manager Robynne Shaw credited an article about the missing horse in the PQB News as well as social medal for the return of the ornament.
“About a week and a half ago, my niece in Nanaimo had shared my (Facebook) post many times and said that somebody had messaged her saying that they had seen the horse in a ditch on Church Road by the overpass,” Shaw said. “I sent my maintenance guy out there to see if he could see it and it was not there when he got there.”
Shaw said last Friday, following the publication of the story in the PQB News that reported the missing horse, she received a phone call from a woman named Patricia claiming she believed she had the horse.
Patricia told Shaw that she found the horse in a ditch on Church Road by the overpass.
“She said ‘we drove by and all we saw was a horse head sticking out of the ditch so we stopped to take a look at it and thought this is nice, we should pick it up,’” Shaw said. “I guess when the article came out in the paper somebody called [Patricia] and said they knew where that horse goes.”
Shaw said the horse had only a small amount of damage to one of its legs and one of the wires was broken, but overall it was in good shape.
“We got it fixed up, he’s up and looking beautiful once again,” Shaw said.
Although she’s not sure what series of events caused the horse to make it into a ditch on Church Road, but one theory she thinks could be possible is whoever stole the horse threw it in the back of their truck and it flew off into the ditch.
Along with the horse, Shaw said a string of Christmas lights was also stolen from the resort.
“We do a lot of work to make Resort Drive look really nice for the community and it’s just frustrating that that happens,” Shaw said.