Erin and her horse Scooter. Photo: Supplied
Auckland rider Erin Swainston knew she had to let go of the reins, or be crushed by her beloved horse when it lost its footing.
"Waves were kind of throwing us around, Scooter was thrashing and trying to get his feet up underneath him and started rolling a bit."
All she could see after the sudden fall into the surf, and her horse Scooter's desperate efforts to right himself, was his belly and feet.
"And I was like, oh my goodness, if I don't let him go he won't be able to really get up on his own and he could potentially end up rolling onto me," she told RNZ.
"So I needed to let him go, so then I did."
Swainston and Scooter were with a friend and her own horse on Auckland's Muriwai Beach on Sunday for what would be the start of a 24-hour ordeal.
It would involve hundreds of people online and on the ground, frantically spreading the word and searching the beach and forest.
The weather was good, "a lovely day", and Swainston had guided Scooter into the waves so he could cool down his legs.
"And then all of a sudden this massive rogue wave came out and hit us," Swainston said.
They tried to get out as quickly as they could but the large wave had spooked 14-year-old Scooter and the pair crashed into water.
The waves, eventually, pushed Swainston away from the horse she's had for seven years - the horse she calls her boy.
He took off on his own in fright.
Beloved horse Scooter before he went missing. Photo: Supplied
"Honestly it was the scariest thing, I felt my panic just rising and rising and rising... he was just so panicked that he just started to run around and then he started heading towards the dunes, and I was like 'oh God, oh God, oh God... and then he just, he eventually found himself on the other side of the dunes."
Swainston's friend went after him and followed Scooter's tracks for as long as she could, but to no avail.
Scooter was gone, and Swainston did not know if they would ever be reunited.
The search with hundreds online and scores on the ground
What began as a few desperate messages snowballed into a groundswell of support and help, her lost horse took over social media.
Swainston, who is president of the Massey Pony Club, messaged close friends and family asking if they could come to help look for him.
She put a message into the club committee's online chat, and club members soon joined the hunt.
"And then posts were starting to go up as well on social media, like my friends were posting on social media and they started going into community groups and things like that as well, so then it just started really growing and growing and growing," Swainston said.
She was blown away by the response, soon there was a Facebook group created to help find Scooter with about 200 members with many joining the search on the ground.
About 150 were searching on Muriwai Beach and combing nearby Woodhill Forest.
Posts with photos of Scooter, pleading for any sightings, kept popping up on social media.
"Honestly, how the community banded together, like the horsey world, the horsey community and the locals and non-locals and the iwi, and everybody that came together and also, like, how much awareness everybody had about it, everyone throughout the country knew about it and people from Aussie and the UK knew about it," Swainston said.
"It was so scary because we went for over 24 hours without spottings, the only thing we really found was fresh horse poo on the ground which, we're like, 'oh this is a good sign', but there was no sightings for hours.
"And so I was starting to really lose hope, this is such a massive area, there's so many places he could have gone," Swainston said.
"But then, I think it was really pure luck and just a miracle really, I was trying to find him, a needle in a haystack."
Scooter is found
Two women among those looking for Scooter in Woodhill Forest, Liz and Rachel, found him down one of its trails in some undergrowth, and he came rushing down a path.
Rachel and Liz, the women who found Scooter, leading him out. Photo: Supplied
It was only about 20 minutes from an equestrian park but roughly two hours or so from where this story started at Muriwai Beach, Swainston estimated.
"Once they're scared they go into full flight mode and they just run blind for hours so then once he kind of regained a little bit of sense he would have been just really lost and turned around, so he wouldn't have known how to get back, so he just kind of kept wandering around really."
The two women led Scooter out, and a call was made to Swainston's mother.
Swainston, still desperately searching for him herself, was in the forest on an e-bike at the time.
"So then my mum just told me 'he's back, they've got him', and honestly we both started bursting into tears when we found out that news."
Swainston called local iwi who picked her up and drove her and her friends through the forest.
"And once I got there, I started crying again, put the halter on him and walked him back," she said.
"Every horse owner knows it, it's literally the worst nightmare that you could ever be in."
Scooter doing well
Swainston said riders and their horses had a special bond and connection, and that they were loved like children.
"He's like my heart horse, when I lost him it was just the most devastating thing ever and then going the whole 24 hours with no sightings, it was really hard to kind of keep hold of hope and stay strong, and then I had maybe two hours sleep that night, it was exhausting."
Scooter after he was safely back and reunited. Photo: Supplied
But what Swainston called a nightmare was now over.
Scooter had been checked by a vet and was in good condition with no cuts, no scrapes and no dehydration, despite his ordeal.
"He's great, he was super happy in his paddock grazing with his friends, he gave me a little neigh when I walked up to him and then got him out."
He has been pampered with a massage rug back at the pony club.
Swainston said she and Scooter would probably not venture into waves again.
"We might just stick to the estuary or the lakes."
She wanted to thank the hundreds of people who spread the word or tried to find him, saying she and her mother could not thank them enough.
"The kindness, time and care shown going above and beyond in rain and shine meant more to us than we could ever explain," she said.
"We are incredibly grateful."
She also said the sharing of posts and messages being sent helped them hold onto hope when it felt impossible to do so.
"From the bottom of our hearts, thank you again."
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