All photos provided with permission by SAU Rodeo Team management
Once in a while, you run across a truly unique story. One that not only chills you to the core by showing the cruelty of human nature, but also warms your heart with the knowledge that by way of a little horse sense and a touch of divine intervention, things can be made right again. This is that story.
In the early morning hours of Nov. 3, five Quarter Horses were stolen from the Southern Arkansas University Rodeo Team’s stables in Magnolia, AR. Along with the horses, the thieves took a horse trailer containing the students’ equipment and tack.
After a lengthy search, four of the horses were recovered about two weeks ago. The last horse, a 15-year-old gelding named “Credit Card,” who belonged to rodeo team president, Shaun Smith, was still missing.
Last week, on the day after Thanksgiving, the remains of Credit Card were found in McCurtain County, Oklahoma.
An investigation is currently underway, and it has been said that authorities are examining multiple leads and several persons of interest. While we can’t comment on the nature of the death of Credit Card at this time, individuals close to the case say that the collection of the remains was very traumatic, to say the least.
Today, SAU Rodeo Coach Rusty Hayes, sought solace in the company of his horses after the conclusion of this emotionally trying ordeal. After taking a short break from his ride, he was able to recount the tale of the horses’ discovery and tell us about the next steps he will be taking moving forward to help his students recover.
“The horses were taken around 12:30 a.m. right before we were going to have our hometown college rodeo,” Hayes says. “We went down to feed the horses, and they were gone. We were so busy with some 250 other college students coming into town, that they had to know it would be a good time to steal them. They came into town, took the five horses, our horse trailer, and saddles.”
After receiving a tip from a sheriff in Oklahoma, Hayes decided to take student, Ashley Mills, whose horse was among those missing, and do their own search to see if they could locate the stolen animals.
“The sheriff thought they had a general idea of where some horses might be in the woods,” he says. “He gave us a place to start looking, and then we came up with this little plan of how we could find them.”
“Ashley’s one horse, who was stolen, had a stablemate that was always stalled right beside him. If they were separated at any time, this mare would nicker at him. We thought that if we could take the mare, and get her to nicker, that he would answer her. We took that mare and a 3-year-old gelding of mine, that hadn’t been hauled very much, and we tied them up behind the trailer in the woods for about two hours and just let them bond.”
“Then, we took that gelding, and tied him up a ways off where the mare couldn’t see him. It was really through divine intervention that it all worked. It became really quiet and still where the sound could carry. She nickered for the gelding twice, and the second time the missing gelding answered her faintly. It gave us a good idea of where to look in the thicket. We rode back and forth a few times to pinpoint the location of where they were.”
Through a little common horse sense and some divine intervention, four of the missing horses were found tied to trees in the woods of Oklahoma. Although they were malnourished and fatigued, they were safe. As far as Hayes is concerned, that talkative mare is the true hero of this tale.
Although they had hopes that the final missing horse would also be recovered safely, just last Friday Credit Card’s remains were discovered by authorities.
Credit Card belonged to rodeo team president, Shaun Smith, who liked to compete in events like calf roping. Smith’s younger brother, Wes, also competed with the gelding and qualified for the High School Rodeo Finals with him this year. Smith is a Junior at SAU, where he is working on a business degree.
“He is an extremely outgoing, young man,” Hayes says. “He is actually doing a reality tv show right now, so we have only been able to talk to him once a week, with the producer in the room. That is actually what has added some difficulty to this, because we had to find a way to get word to him that we had found the remains of his horse. It was hard, because he wasn’t near his family where they could rely on each other for support.”
“Shaun’s younger brother, West, has kind of gotten lost in stories written about this. He is 15 and made it to the High School Finals on Credit Card this year. He has had just as hard of a time as anyone else. It didn’t really hit him until we buried the horse on Tuesday.”
Caption: Shaun Smith
People often ask Hayes about Credit Card’s unusual name, which he says actually came about from an old TV commercial.
“His name is because of an old credit card commercial that always said ‘don’t leave home without it,’” he says. “That was how it was with Shaun and this horse. He never left home without him.”
After meeting with Smith and the other students, Hayes says the group wanted to set up a scholarship fund in memory of Credit Card.
“We have set up a fund in memory of Shaun’s horse and to help the other students defray some of the costs of what they have had to go through,” Hayes says. “We are hoping that the University will provide Shaun with a new horse, or the funds to do it. The main thing that we have been pushing right now is to raise enough money for a scholarship fund, so we could get enough to give out $1,000 a year to one rodeo student. This has been a life-changing event for these students and their families and we are hoping that a little bit of money could help to change the life of students in the future.”
“If we could get $15,000, that would make it an endowed scholarship by the University. That wouldn’t provide all of the funds needed to award $1,000 a year, but we would do some regional fundraising to make that amount. We just put the information up on Facebook about it today. This is how these students and their families wanted to do this. We came up with this, and it is all our doing. This is how we want it done.”
If you would like to make a donation to the “Credit Card” scholarship fund, or donate funds that will benefit team members and their recovered horses, you can visit the www.saufoundation.org website and click on the “Make a Gift” button. You can also call (870)-235-4078, (877) 235-7409, or mail to SAU Foundation, P.O. Box 9174, Magnolia, AR 71754.
Hayes anticipates it will take several months to return the horses to their original condition, but at this time they are home and healthy.
“It takes months to get a starved horse back to having normal muscle tone, and you have to do it really slowly,” he says. “If you try to rush it, you run the risk of colic and laminitis and a whole bunch of problems.”
Now that this whole ordeal is drawing to a close, Hayes is thankful for the safe return of the four horses, but he is determined that there will be justice for Credit Card and Shaun Smith.
“The investigation is ongoing and they have some leads and what they call persons of interest,” he says. “I want justice, and I want these people punished. The emotional toll on these kids has been great. After the justice system punishes them as much as they can, it is my personal belief that they should never be allowed to be around or own horses.”
“These are supposed to be horse people, but horse people don’t do this to horses. Personally, I think they should be banned from the horse industry. When these names come out, people will know for years to come what they did and who they are.”
We would like to encourage the horse industry to send their support to Ty Lester and Grey, Hope Shelton and her black mare, D.J. Dickinson and Lena, Ashley Mills and Badger, and Shaun Smith and his fondly remembered Credit Card, following this difficult ordeal.
