A Loshenka in Arizona?

“Whose idea was it to get this horse?” Whinfrey muttered under her breath.

Whinfrey, Zeppora, and Zachary stood on the far side of the stable pasture, awe written plainly across their faces. In the field, a one-year-old stallion—a young, freckly-white Loshenka colt—was recklessly frolicking through the mud-soaked grass. The handlers were splattered with dirt, mud, and whatever other mysterious grime had come from wrangling the stallion into place. They had just spent the better part of three days retrieving him from Queen Creek, Arizona, at a strange and desolate ranch with no other horses of his breed. To make things stranger, the owner had sent them off with nothing to show for their purchase other than a simple receipt—hardly any records of vet exams, insurance, birth records, or anything of real importance. It was suspicious and more than enough of a red flag, but after receiving several homemade recordings of the colt they intended to buy, it had seemed worth the risk to at least go assess him for themselves. At the end of the day, at least they had a colt here in the flesh. If only he hadn’t been such a hassle to get home, though, Zeppora thought. That would have made everything easier.

Zeppora chuckled and turned to Whinfrey, hoping to cheer her up from her irritated mood. “Well, at least he’s happy,” she said, shrugging as she glanced back at the young colt.

But Whinfrey wasn’t having it.
“Out of all the horses I’ve dealt with in my lifetime,” she grumbled, “this is the first one who seems to be happier on some unfamiliar farm than he was being fed all kinds of sweets in the trailer for two hours. Never have I seen a foal be so unwilling to eat anything other than a sugarcube...”

She shrugged again, shaking her head as she recalled the ordeal they’d just endured together. “As hard as it’s been to find this breed, I’m still confused that they had no paperwork for him.”

Whinfrey scoffed. “Those people didn’t have their heads on straight to begin with.”

“True, but how does a Russian breed end up in Arizona?” Zeppora replied.

As they spoke, the colt paused and looked them over.
I wonder if they have any more of those sweet things, he thought.

With the highest raise of his long tail he could muster, he approached them, gliding through the dewy air in an expressive, high-kneed trot. Whinfrey and the twins’ eyes widened with genuine surprise as they observed the colt coming over. The young horse tried to allure them with a soft whinny, but when nobody moved, he resorted to noisily brushing his lips against their pockets.

“Did you see that!?” Zeppora exclaimed to her brother, who responded with a raised brow.

“I think everyone did,” Zachary remarked.

The twins couldn’t help but turn their attention to Whinfrey, who had been anything but impressed with the colt up to this point. “No way…” she whispered to herself.

It was a shock to everyone to see the colt hit such a show-like gait out of nowhere. Zeppora wondered if Whinfrey was thinking what she was thinking—that the colt’s mother might have even trained in high levels of dressage. Whatever those missing records could have contained may have even held the answer.

Suddenly, she whipped around and headed back to the SUV. “Gotta run. Just realized something.”

Zeppora scrunched her face in disbelief. “You figured something out, didn’t you?” she cried. “I’m coming too!”

“Suit yourself,” Whinfrey replied, now halfway to the vehicle.

Zachary and the colt watched them walk off. “Huh,” Zachary puffed. “Don’t mind us, we’ll walk back home… or something.”

“We’re just heading to the farmhouse,” Whinfrey called back.

Zachary dropped his shoulders with a sigh and looked at the colt. “Women. So impulsive, am I right?”

The colt nickered and bit him by the shirt.

“H-hey!” Zachary cried.

I gotta make sure this one doesn’t leave too before giving me one of those sweet things they have, the young horse thought.

---

Back at the farmhouse, Whinfrey and Zeppora swiftly entered to find Finn, Whinfrey’s son, sitting at his mother’s office desk.

“Excuse me? And what are you doing?” Whinfrey grunted.
“Uhh… checking emails?” Finn smiled nervously.

From behind Whinfrey, Zeppora shyly glanced at Finn. When he saw, she—in a way not smooth at all—looked off and ran a finger through the tresses of her hair.

“Hi,” Finn mouthed at her. Upon noticing his gesture, Zeppora bashfully waved back at him.

Whinfrey, observing them both, rolled her eyes.
“You’re too old for this, boy,” she grunted, pulling back the chair Finn was sitting in.
“Now move,” she continued, “I have to hop on here before that new colt’s sales ad gets taken down.”

Finn moved quickly out of his seat, taking a place next to Zeppora. They both looked at each other, curious and confused.

“I’m almost positive,” Whinfrey explained, “that I heard about this somewhere before. Some sort of horse smuggler caught in California who had their remaining horses seized by authorities. I heard they lit their vehicle on fire to burn whatever documents they had on the animals.”

“Huh,” Finn remarked. “People smuggle horses in this day and age?”

Zeppora stepped forward. “Those dots could connect. I also read about this case. None of the clients had authentic records on the horses they purchased. A lot of them weren’t in good condition either—over-bred, underfed, poorly exercised, or all of the above.”

Whinfrey snapped her fingers.
“Bingo. He’s a Loshenka colt with no breeding records, and that California case mentioned the breed. Southeast Cali, too. If I can find evidence, I’ll bet whoever sold us this colt was an ex-client.”

Finn frowned. “When was this smuggler caught?”

“Nine months ago,” Whinfrey answered.

Finn’s eyes widened. “So what does that mean for this colt?”

Zeppora looked at Whinfrey eagerly, unsure how to hypothesize about this herself.

“I think it just warrants deeper investigation,” Whinfrey said, folding her arms. “Into our scatterbrained seller.”

Whinfrey looked at Finn. “I sent Bobby an email. I’m going to see if he can look into this for us.”

Finn looked concerned. “Does that mean he’s going to have to come by the ranch?”

Whinfrey shook her head gently, paired with a gentle shrug. Finn looked crestfallen, causing Zeppora to look at him curiously. She herself didn’t know the depth of what that exchange meant, but she did know that ‘Bobby’ was a former detective and husband to Whinfrey. Zeppora never asked questions about these things since Whinfrey never seemed to like getting into it, but it was certainly hard to tell if the two were actually divorced or not. Zeppora only figured that the tension meant there was some sort of infidelity or betrayal to cause them to be so divided. 

Zeppora dusted off her clothes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.“Miss Whinfrey,” she said, as she moved to the door, “I’m going to go get the foal cleaned up.”

“And get Zachary?” Whinfrey chuckled.

“Hmm. We’ll see if I feel like it,” Zeppora laughed back.

---

Does nobody here have any food after all? What kind of place is this?  The colt thought, desperate for a sweet sensation in his mouth.

He had no strong memories of any farm or ranch before his last—except for the sweet taste of milk in a dark, cramped stall. Even at his last placement, the cranky white-haired couple who kept him put him out to pasture the whole time. He saw other horses, the big grown ones, getting colorful foods during his stay. The grunts and snorts of the horses living there made it pretty clear that he wasn’t welcome to anything outside of the pasture—and that they wouldn’t be sharing. He even remembered hearing a mare say, “That colt is just here for a week or two, don’t make friends,” to her own one-year filly while he tried to approach them.

With his new handlers running away so fast after bringing him to a new field, the colt felt his heart become heavy. Is this place going to be exactly the same? he thought.

Just then, the colt heard the thunder of a set of hoofsteps. He turned to see a golden mare heading his direction, making him a bit nervous. He tucked his ears back and cowered away from the approaching figure. However, something still told him he didn’t need to run away. After all, he wanted to figure out who this approaching horse was. As she approached, her figure became clear—although it wasn’t quite as long, her long tail waved in the wind, revealing a long tailbone similar to his own.

“Woah,” the colt whinnied.

The mare perked upon seeing him. “I don’t believe my eyes,” she snorted. “Another horse of my own kind. So young, too…”

The colt peeked at the rider. It was the same young girl who was feeding him all kinds of sweet things when they were in the trailer all those hours ago. He neighed happily and pranced over to her, nosing and pushing on her shin with his muzzle.

“Someone’s excited,” Zeppora laughed. “Think you can get him to follow you back, Frenchie?”

Zachary—who was climbing to mount up onto the mare behind his sister—scoffed in disbelief. “Tch, if any horse can, it would be her…”

Frenchie looked at the colt with a firm gaze. “You’re supposed to follow me now.”

As she started to turn and walk away with her two mounted riders, the colt paused and shyly pawed the ground.

“Are there… sweets where we’re going?” he asked gently.

Frenchie came to a gentle stop to look back at him. “Sweets? Like sweet hay?”

“No,” he nickered softly, “like, um, sweet white lumps. I don’t know…”

“Sugar?” Frenchie replied, confused.

“Yeah!” the colt neighed. “Well, um, maybe!”

Frenchie looked puzzled. She softly rolled her eyes and gave her head a little shake. “Actually,” she said gently, “they have something even better back there.”

“Whaaat?” the colt brayed, finally trotting along behind her. “What’s better than sugar?”

“Well,” the mare said softly as they all began to head back to the stables, “they keep a barrel of fruits for us to dig into whenever they feel like we’ve earned it. And you’re just a little foal; you don’t have to do anything but be cute for something like that. Which, well, don’t tell anybody I said this, but… you are, so you don’t have to worry.”

The colt squealed happily. “Hooray, sweet things!”

The mare rolled her eyes adoringly. Normally she didn't care for little ones, but this one had a spark that was amusing to her. In all her years, in all the show foals she'd met, most had been recklessly arrogant. The mare had no foal of her own yet, and was getting older. She had always put up such a violent fight when her old owners would put her up to stud. Thankfully, since coming to Dothar, her kind owner never forced her into studding and had always treated her with kindness and tenderness. However, the mare thought to herself, if this is what having a foal could be like? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. She nipped the foal in the ear with her lips. He nickered excitedly in response.

"That tickles! Hehe!" He neighed.

As they walked, Zeppora inspected the young horse’s speckled coat. On the limited paperwork they had received for him, he was listed as a white horse. But she could very clearly see freckles of a warm brown coat peeking out in his coat, mane, and all over his head.

“He’s about as white as a toasted marshmallow,” she muttered quietly, not realizing her thoughts were being spoken aloud.

“Toasted marshmallows?” Zachary cried from behind her. “Where? I deserve a sweet treat after all this abuse…”

“Be so for real,” Zeppora snapped back. “What do you think we should name the foal?”

Zachary paused for a moment, observing him as well. “Toasted marshmallow isn’t too bad of a name. As hungry as he is, naming him after the best-ever outdoor snack shouldn’t be a poor fit.”

“Hmm… Toast?” Zeppora said sweetly.

At the same moment, the colt perked his ears and moved himself to walk a few paces closer behind them, almost as if he was responding to the name. Although Zeppora was pretty sure that wasn’t the case, she couldn’t help but giggle at the perfect timing of it all.

“I think we should name him Toast,” she said to her brother.

“Hmph. Wasted opportunity for ‘Toasted Marshmallow’...” Zachary grumbled.

---

Two days later, Toast seemed happier at the ranch. One morning, Sephora worked alone, cleaning the stall of their only stallion, a four-year-old Rocky Mountain named Fisher, who calmly stood beside her as he munched garden vegetables from her wheelbarrow.

Zeppora’s routine, not tied to any sort of obligation towards Whinfrey, was a daily rhythm of looking after Dothar Estates. Whinfrey had inherited the property from her grandparents only five years earlier, yet it was not until an equestrian event two years later that she met Zeppora and her brother. From that meeting forward, and after getting to know Whinfrey and her family business, that Zeppora gradually stepped up to the plate to look after the estate. That is, to the best of her ability.

The estate itself was vast. The stables alone could board nearly one-hundred-eighty horses. Beyond them stretched a courtyard garden, twenty-five guest rooms, and showgrounds equipped for large gatherings. It was an enormous inheritance, to say the least, and the challenge only deepened by the fact that the Dothar family was small. For that reason, Zeppora made it her duty to arrive each morning. She gathered the ripened produce, carried the best of it to the pantry or kitchen, and brought the rest to the horses, offering them an early meal to start the day.

Zeppora and Zachary had not come from a farm or family of equestrians. They were simply eager, horse-loving teens who moved lawns for eight summers to buy their first horse and board him at a local stables. They shared that horse until they could buy another, competing as soon as they were old enough to. Their skill and committment to training their two horses earned them many ribbons and cups in local shows. This was something the both of them were always very proud of. There was not a horse they could not train. The opprotunity to care for the handful of horses that lived at the estate was an honor to Zeppora, and she--along with her brother--had been treated as long-term guests to Whinfrey. To Zeppora, it was a dream come true to wake up in a luxury room, eat fresh food every day, and spend every waking hour of her life admist horses and equestrian facilities. Helping out in the mornings was the least she could do.

At that moment, as Zeppora had just begun to feed, water, and clean all the horses' stalls when Whinfrey came loudly stomping down the hallway.

“I got it!” she cried, waving her hands frantically, though she seemed to be clutching a thick stack of papers.

Zeppora straightened from her work, puzzled and alarmed. “What is it? What did you find?”

Her eyes flicked toward Finn, who was unloading a golf cart outside the stable entrance. He looked more winded than his mother somehow. Zeppora blushed and darted her gaze away, worried he might catch her staring.

Whinfrey grabbed Zeppora by the hand, causing her to drop her rake. Together they hurried to the colt’s stall, where the young horse lay barely awake at this early hour, yawning and shifting on the straw.

“Look at this,” Whinfrey said, holding up a gray-scale image.

Zeppora gasped. The photo showed a stunning, long-tailed, fully white Loshenka mare, mounted by a young rider in full dressage attire. The mare herself was captured mid-stride, knees high and neck arched beautifully. She looked every bit the seasoned, well-trained champion.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Whinfrey continued. She revealed the next article—its headline was a blow straight to the gut.

PRINCESS ESTORIA–STOLEN!

“No, no, don’t tell me…” Zeppora’s throat tightened, her eyes watering as the pieces fell together into something heartbreaking.

“That’s right,” Whinfrey sighed. “She was a dressage title-holder. Looks like when her owner bred her to another champion, someone broke into the property and stole several horses. Princess Estoria was one of them. And get this—she was already pregnant.”

Zeppora furrowed her brows. “I don’t like this at all.”

“A stolen mare. An unmonitored pregnancy. An unregistered, undocumented colt. No wonder that owner was so strange about his records—he didn’t even have any.”

Zeppora opened Toast’s stall and coaxed him over with a shiny green apple. He rose at once, trotting happily over to her to clamp his jaws around her tasty offering.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Whinfrey shrugged.

“Mom looked for reports on the mare too,” Finn added as he finally joined the conversation. “No sightings anywhere. She’s either still out there… or she didn’t make it through the foaling.”

“I don’t believe that,” Zeppora retorted quickly. “No thief stupid enough to steal a pregnant dressage champion could have kept a foal alive without milk. He must have had access somehow. Otherwise, the colt wouldn’t have survived.”

“My guess is once he realized who he had, he kept it hidden,” Whinfrey said. “The foal might have been recognizable, but he clearly took the risk and sold him off.”

Zeppora shook her head. “What a horrible story,” she sighed.

“More like—what an idiot!” Finn laughed.

Both Whinfrey and Zeppora chuckled despite themselves. The thief’s carelessness was almost absurd.

“They didn’t even recover her when they seized the horses?” Zeppora asked.

“No,” Whinfrey said sadly. “She wasn’t in the mix. If she had been, that would’ve been the first thing me or Bobby had found.”

Zeppora’s face fell, but then a thought struck her. If Princess Estoria was still out there—somewhere between California and Arizona—then there was hope. The colt was only a year old. If his mother had lived long enough for him to wean onto solid food, she might still be surviving even now.

She looked at Whinfrey, then at Finn, a goofy grin spreading across her face.

“Zeppora?” Whinfrey muttered, wary of the sudden change in her expression.

Finn, though, only stared at her in awe. She looked so full of life, brimming with determination. What could possibly be running through her mind?

Zeppora cupped the colt’s dotted head in her hands, stroking his nose gently as his lips nuzzled against her palm.

“Don’t worry, little Toast,” she whispered.

“We’re going to find your momma.”