For The Love of Luke

By Carrie Lucas
Owner of stolen horse Luke, CO

Approximately June of 1996 I went to see a horse that was for sale in west Colorado. When I saw this skinny horse in the field with no feed and no water I JUST FELL IN LOVE.

Instantly I had to buy him and I named him Luke.

Luke was very green and was not saddle broke, halter broke, and was still with his mother even though he was approximately 1 1/2 years old.

After paying for him and traveling to the location every weekend to work with him on getting him halter broke, I was able to get him in a horse trailer to take him home.

After lots of hard work with ground training getting him ready to get a saddle on him, I took that chance and got up on him. Wow!  He didn't do anything except look at me and basically say, “What's up?”

After that moment Luke just starting to do his job without bucking or trying to throw me off. As he improved with our training I decided to send him off to a trainer to just clear up any faults.

When Luke came back from training I really saw more potential in him. Since I was a police officer I decided to start training him for mounted patrol.

The training was really easy for Luke and I remember the day of certification when we were lined up and the Sergeant started to toss black cat fireworks to test for the horse’s reaction to gun fire. Luke just stood there while the other horses were all nervous and was running into Luke. Luke just turns and looked at them with the look of excuse me?

I was still working in the jail and was about to get a job with Georgetown Police Department in Colorado and I continued to work with Luke. Shortly after getting hired with Georgetown I went through a divorce and there was many times during the night I went to see Luke in his stall, crying. Luke was right there to greet me. I can remember opening the gate and just giving him a hug around his neck and he would just wrap his neck round me like he was giving me a hug back.

After working the streets in Georgetown I started to bring Luke to work. HE LOVED IT and so did the citizens and tourist.

The kids loved to sit up on Luke the Police Horse and would tell their parents they wanted to be a police officer like Officer Cari and want to have a horse like Officer Luke.
Luke and I would do a lot of activities for the citizens and children. Luke just loved working with his kids.

I remember on Easter Luke and I went to visit the kids at their Easter egg hunt. The kids wanted Luke to wear bunny ears so we put them on him and he just wore them like they were his ears.

I moved Luke to a new stall at Mile Hi Humane Society because the stalls where he was were supposedly getting sold. After I moved him there I started to assist the humane society on finding homes for homeless animals.

July 13, 2003 was the worse day of my life and was the day that my heart became broken.

I arrived at Mile Hi Humane Society to feed Luke around 07:30 am, at which time I saw Luke’s stall gate open. The chain was cut and lying on the ground. I saw female size roper lace up boot prints in the dirt. The suspects tried to water down their boot prints but missed the ones near the gate. I could see Luke's hoof prints where he was fighting to get into the horse trailer.

After I saw everything and couldn't find him anywhere I went into the office and called the police to report Luke stolen.  I didn't get much support from the people in the office.

I was lost because my Luke was gone! He was my child, my heart and as of this day I feel lost, and broken hearted.

Approximately 10 days later I went to get my horse trailer from the humane society and that was stolen.

So after losing Luke and now having the trailer missing I started to feel like my life was worthless and didn't know where or what to do but I knew I had to be there for my daughter.

I tried to look for Luke myself, but didn't get anywhere.

In November of 2003 I moved to Texas because of my dad’s health and felt that I needed to be there for my parents since my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

My heart is still broken and still missing my Luke and will until he comes home to me.