Brenda Elder said she hopes the thieves who struck Healing Winds therapeutic riding center late Monday night realize who they stole from and return the tools and other items they took.
“We’re not just an everyday stable that has horses,” she said.
Brenda Elder and her mother, Nancy Elder, operate the Brush Prairie-based business. Healing Winds caters to people with disabilities or emotional trauma, many of them children. Learning to work with and ride horses provides some relief, and many students participate through “scholarships” paid for through donations.
Adding insult to injury, the business just celebrated its 30th anniversary, she said.
Elder said her mother was walking on the property Monday night and noticed all the lights in the barn were on, so she went inside to check.
“They looked down and there was one of her tool sets, with her drill and bits and socket sets, and it was laying there on the floor,” Brenda Elder said.
Her mother saw the door to the tack room had been pried open and the tool room was trashed.
They were still assessing what all had been taken Tuesday, Elder said.
“Mainly a lot of tools,” she said. “All of the animals are safe. They were outside all last night, out in their paddocks, because of the weather.”
That’s good, she said, because if the animals were in the barn they could have wandered off.
Elder said she called the sheriff’s office and, on Tuesday afternoon, took to Facebook, offering the thieves 24 hours to return what they stole to the front door of the stables, no harm done.
Without those tools, it’ll be difficult for the business to run, she said.
If a horse breaks a board to a ramp or damages a fence or gate, they can’t fix it, so they can’t operate, she said.
The plan Tuesday afternoon, she said, was to keep cataloging what was taken, get the broken doors and locks repaired and review the stable’s surveillance video.
Elder said they installed the cameras after someone burglarized the stables a few years ago.
They took cash, a laptop and other items, she said, adding up to almost $10,000 in value.
Also, Elder said the riding center will probably start looking for tool donations and see about setting up an online fund raising campaign.
“It’s really frustrating,” she said. “We’ll make it work. We have before.”
