East Texas mission rehabilitates, rehomes prison horses

LINDALE, Texas (KLTV) - An East Texas woman is on a mission to save horses that have given valuable service to the state: prison horses. In one case, she’s even reuniting a horse with its officer.

Just west of Lindale is the Prison and Police Horse Rescue ranch, founded with a mission: saving service horses.

“Some of them are retired out usually at the ages of 19 and 22. Some of them are culled due to an injury,” said Ranch Founder Tanya Stone.

Giving faithful service to the prison system, the fate of the animals when retired is usually auction and sometimes being put down.

“About a year and a half ago, I got my first prison horse. He was in bad shape. It took months and months of rehab to get him back,” Tanya said.

Stone got an unexpected blessing out of the operation when a former prison officer inquired about his former mount, a horse named Paco.

“We went to the auction. One of the horses turned out to be Paco,” she said.

“I didn’t know exactly where, when, a location, was he going to be auctioned -- didn’t know anything,” said Sergeant Eduardo “Eddie” Inocencio IV.

Last Saturday, Sergeant Eddie, as he’s known, was reunited with Paco.

“As soon as I called him by his name, you could look at his ears, and he knew I was calling him. He was my second eyes and ears. It was a good moment,” Eddie said.

“We donated Paco back to Sergeant Eddie,” said Tanya.

For Stone, the value of what she’s doing is priceless.

“We like to rehome them with the right person. It’s actually given me a purpose in life,” she said.

Stone also said the rescue will loan out their horses to law enforcement since the animals are trained, if requested.

Paco and Sergeant Eddie are back together at his ranch in Frio County.

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