MANDARIN, Fla. — The Mandarin couple who lost nine miniature horses after a local rescue group took them following a fire has now recovered six of them.
Alison and Gary Garrett suffered a house fire earlier this month. During that fire, they gave Vicki’s Rescue Ranch permission to take their ten miniature horses — an arrangement the couple thought was temporary.
In the following days, the rescue refused to give the Garretts back their horses, and they’ve been searching for them ever since — until Saturday.
Lexi Willis, the Garretts’ farrier since 2019, has been actively scouring horse Facebook groups for any information regarding the horses’ whereabouts. Finally, she came across an advertisement from an Ocala auction. Listed was one of the missing horses, Rosie.
Willis called the auction on Sunday morning and was informed that the same seller who listed Rosie had multiple other listings. Willis says she saw three of the Garretts’ horses on the auction’s website, though six were ultimately recovered.
But the seller who listed the horses was not Vicki Davis of Vicki’s Rescue Ranch; it was someone else.
Aleksas Barauskas, the Garretts’ attorney, says that they’re still putting together all of the moving pieces in this case.
“It looks like it’s been made as complicated as possible,” Barauskas said. “Using go betweens and intermediaries to make it hard to track down these horses and who’s putting them into auctions and all of that.”
Barauskas and Jard Nichols, a paralegal for Terrell Hogan, says they’re still working on confirming the relationship between Davis and the seller who listed the horses.
Three of the horses, Blaze, Ringo and Buddy, are still missing. If you have information that could lead to their whereabouts, please contact the law firm representing the Garretts at jnichols@terrellhogan.com.
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