The owner of a rodeo horse missing from the Stanley County fairgrounds tells KELOLAND News she's glad an arrest has been made after the horse, Dually, turned up badly hurt. 

Wendy Hallweg says she hopes justice will be served. 22 year old Flint Dahl of Fort Pierre faces two counts of grand theft and one count of inhumane treatment of an animal. Dahl admitted in court papers he took Dually from his pen in the early morning hours of July 5th and rode him through town.

He stopped at several locations where Dually got spooked and injured itself, but Dahl kept riding him anyway. When Hallweg got Dually back a few hours later, he had lacerations or rope burns on his legs and an injury in the area of his right eye.

Horse owners say its important that investigators continue to pursue Dually's case because he is not just any horse, Dually is a barrel racing horse, which takes years of training and thousands of dollars to become successful.

Jennifer Starr is a horse owner and a horse lover from Mitchell.

"We love our horses and we'll do anything for them and to have this type of treatment it was totally an outrage," Starr said.

Starr owns three horses herself and has been following Dually's case for nearly three months now.

"I'm kind of surprised charges weren't filed sooner, but at least in the end here there will be some sort of justice for the two of them," Starr said.

Starr just talked with Dually's owner this week and says its such a sad case because Dually is a special horse.

"Dually is 12 years old and she has been training, working, and grooming every day for 12 years to get to that point she is at right now. This summer nearly every barrel race she went to she won. So, this was finally going to be their year where everything was coming together," Starr said.

And a successful barrel racing horse like Dually is hard to come by. Carolyn Moe owns Hobby Horse Overnight Stables in Mitchell. 

"It takes a lot of patience from the person riding, plus the horse has to be a special horse and want to do it," Moe said.

That's why horse lovers hope justice can now be found in the courts months after Dually was taken from a place that was supposed to be secure. 

"People just can't believe that someone would take something, that somebody worked so hard to get where she's gotten, and then do something like that," Moe said.

Dahl turned himself into authorities Tuesday night but no court date has been set.