Owner writes children’s story about mini horse escaping. Then it actually did in NC
Encore the miniature horse was the star of a children’s book that chronicled his fictional escape from a barn.
But the tale became too close to reality for Abriana Johnson — Encore’s owner and author of “Cowgirl Camryn and the Great Escape” — after the pint-sized animal got loose in real life.
“How is it that I’ve written this thing into existence?” said Johnson. “Let me write down we get a million dollars or something.”
Johnson, who lives in North Carolina, said she was making breakfast Sunday morning before she went outside to water the plants on the porch.
That’s where she saw her dogs and realized something was amiss.
“I ran around the side of the house and of course Encore was not there,” Johnson told McClatchy News. “So I am thinking that one of the dogs may have hit the latch to the gate and opened it, and everyone went free.”
Johnson wasn’t wearing shoes when she started running down the street to look for Encore in the Goldsboro area, southeast of Raleigh. She later jumped into Encore’s vehicle — dubbed the mini mobile — and called a neighbor to help her search.
Meanwhile, the Goldsboro Police Department said it received calls about horse sightings and fanned out to track down the elusive animal. They found the mini horse on a residential street, where he was “given an apple and was calm the entire time,” LaToya Henry, spokesperson for the city of Goldsboro, told McClatchy News in an email.
Photos and video from Sunday show officers petting the beloved mini horse as they rescued him about 2 miles away from where he originally broke free.
Encore is used to making friends.
Johnson said he’s a therapy horse that interacted with children and visited a center for older adults before the coronavirus pandemic. She got him in 2018 to accompany her at events and eventually noticed his talents.
“It wasn’t until I started working with him — because there is a lot of training involved — and we started going around kids that I realized he kind of has a knack for it,” Johnson said.
Encore made his escape after a recent move from Zebulon, where he had been around larger horses and sometimes roamed to eat grass.
“Although it’s not necessarily in his nature to run like that, it is instinctual (for horses) to get spooked and to run,” Johnson said.
After Encore actually got loose, Johnson joked that the sequence of events inspired a potential new book title, in case this one turns out as prophetic as the last: “Encore stays exactly where he’s supposed to.”
“In less than 24 hours Encore has made his mark on this city,” Johnson wrote Sunday on Facebook. “He’s back chomping grass and acting like nothing happened meanwhile I need a nap.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 10:41 AM with the headline "Owner writes children’s story about mini horse escaping. Then it actually did in NC."
