• A horse was found wandering around the Menomonee Valley Sunday night.
• The horse belongs to the boyfriend of a Marquette freshman.
• The boyfriend, a college rodeo competitor in Missouri, dropped his girlfriend off at Marquette on Sunday.
• At some point while he was in Milwaukee, one of the boyfriend's two horses escaped from his trailer.

It's not often that a horse roams unattended through the streets of Milwaukee in 2009.

But that's what eyewitnesses saw Sunday night in the Menomonee Valley.

The horse belongs to the family of a Marquette freshman's boyfriend, who was returning the student to Cobeen Hall Sunday night. The boyfriend, who competes in college rodeo, was dropping his girlfriend off before returning to school in Missouri with his two horses.

The boyfriend's father said both horses were tied up in his son's trailer but that one horse could have untied the other.

"She must have backed right up and popped the latch — 800 pounds on that door," said the father, who operates a ranch in Wisconsin where the two horses were trained.

The loose horse — Breezy — was spotted by witnesses near 25th Street and St. Paul Avenue, according to Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Kim Brooks.

All the horse had was its lead rope and a harness blanket. Dave Sobelman, owner of Sobelman's Pub & Grill, 1900 W. St. Paul Ave., had noticed the horse walking calmly down the street, headed east around 6 p.m.

"I ran out of the bar and everyone followed me," Sobelman said. "It took us a second – I don't know if that's really what I saw."

Sobelman and a waiter had grabbed the horse by its rope, until police arrived moments later.

It's unclear when the 6-year-old Breezy escaped. But the boyfriend realized one of his horses was missing when he stopped near Beloit.

"For some reason he just had a gut feeling or something," his mother said. "He opened and saw only one horse there and what a panic we were all in."

By then, the horse was with the police. The other horse that remained in the trailer — High Dollar — had injured its leg in transit. The boyfriend returned to Milwaukee to bring that horse to a veterinarian. He then returned on the road to Missouri with Breezy.

High Dollar, a 10-year-old horse, is on antibiotics and is expected to return to the owner's family ranch.

"We are just grateful that Breezy is okay and nobody got hurt, and saying our prayers that Dollar can be up and performing," the mother said.