Horse, owner rescued after being trapped in ravine in Temecula

TEMECULA, Calif. - Sunny the horse is on his way to safety after he spent days trapped in a ravine. 

"He’s my world I slept with him for two nights and three days to make sure he was safe. He’s one of kids," said Sunny’s owner Kaity Mialma.

Mialma was trail riding the 4-year-old Thoroughbred Wednesday in Lake Skinner View Estates in Temecula when the horse got spooked. 

"He went up the hill and then came back down again and then went up again and he flipped me off."

Mialma jumped on the back of a friend’s horse and raced back to the ranch to call her husband Chris for help. 

They went back down the mountain searching, but for a while couldn’t find her horse.  

"He came down here and I saw his hair and I said I think I have a general idea where he’s at and I called and called and called and he finally nickered at me. I said Sunny do it again and he popped his head up and I immediately knew where he was," she told FOX 11’s Hailey Winslow. 

Sunny was able to make it over large boulders and when Mialma came back, in a panic, the horse pinned her against the rock. She was then able to calmly walk Sunny over to the bottom of a waterfall. 

She says it’s a miracle he didn’t break his leg.

"The vet came out and let us know that it was not life-threatening. That he didn’t have a broken leg cause if he had a broken leg they’d have to euthanize him," she stated.  

Sunny had scratches and cuts and Mialma twisted her ankle. However, with massive rocks all around them, they were stuck…and the winds were too high to helicopter the horse out of the area.  So for the past few days, they’ve been here.  

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"During the day it’s ok, at nighttime it’s cold and we are very much snuggling with each other. He got a horse blanket so he was nice and warm but he decided to play with us at night and pull our sleeping bags off and paw at us."

Her husband Chris lugged hay and buckets of water through the rugged half-mile hike down…they even got a Thanksgiving picnic.  

"We took some plates with us and we had Thanksgiving out here. I mean really Thanksgiving is about taking care of everything you love and being thankful first," Chris Mialma said. 

With this massive amount of manpower – led by Riverside Co. Animal Services and crews from Cal Fire, and Riverside Co. Fire and Sheriff’s Departments, they strategically planned the rescue.  

They tranquilized Sunny, choppered in, strapped up the horse and got him safely out of here.  

A Thanksgiving weekend none of them will ever forget.  

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