Family offers $10,000 to help find person who shot beloved rodeo horse outside SC home
.png "A Moore, South Carolina, family’s horse, named P-Dab, was shot and killed and they’re offering a reward for information that leads to an arrest.")
It was feeding time and all seemed fine in the pasture, but as Moore, South Carolina, resident Allan Harmon neared his horse he saw the blood across its face, the swelling in its neck, and no idea of the cause, the Herald-Journal reported.
“When I found him he was still standing,” Harmon said. He whisked P-Dab, the family’s beloved rodeo horse, to a veterinarian for help.
They found around 50 lead pellets lodged in P-Dab, put there with a shotgun. Harmon had hoped the injuries were minor, mendable, but the vet said there was little they could do for the 16-year-old stallion besides euthanasia, the outlet reported.
A month after the Jan. 6 shooting, who pulled the trigger and why remains a mystery, and the Harmons are now offering a $10,000 reward to anyone with answers, outlets report.
“It was honestly like he was a human,” daughter Monica Harmon told WYFF.
Monica and her brother grew up with P-Dab, and their family had been traveling to rodeo events and competitions with him for more than a decade, according to the station.
“If I could’ve had a conversation with him, it would have been like he was my best friend. Every event I had with him, it was just fun because it was like me and my best friend doing our best thing together,” Monica Harmon said.
Over the years, P-Dab won more than $100,000 in competitions, and was named 2015 Horse of the Year for South Carolina High School Rodeo, the Herald Journal reported.
Authorities in Spartanburg County believe the incident occurred a little after 11 p.m. on Jan. 6 — someone driving by pulled off the road, exited their vehicle and shot P-Dab up close.
Some neighbors remember hearing at least one shot, but besides the odd time of day, most thought nothing of it, Fox Carolina reported. Not unusual to hear gunfire in the area.
The same night and two miles down the road, a camper and truck belonging to neighbors of the Harmons were also hit by shotgun fire.
There’s anger and grief, but also a concern for the safety of others that’s driving the Harmons to offer a reward to help solve the case.
“If someone would walk up to a horse and shoot it that close, what else possibly would they do? Not necessarily to an animal, but to another person. We’re just trying to do all we can to increase the probability that someone will be caught,” Allan Harmon told WYFF.