What spooked the horses? Evidence points to dogs

<p>Authorities still are not certain what caused five horses to break through their electrified fence and run half a mile onto Highway 121, where Mark Steven Trupiano, a Santa Rosa father of two, was killed when his car hit the horses, the Napa County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.</p><p>Paw prints found inside the Napa-area enclosure from where the horses fled early Wednesday lend support to suggestions the animals were spooked by a large dog.</p><p>“There is a possibility that a dog did get into their enclosure and spooked them,” Capt. Jean Donaldson said. “We have no eyewitnesses that saw that, or anything like that, but that is a possibility,” he said Thursday morning.</p><p>He said the prints were obviously dog prints. It wasn’t clear if more than one dog might have been involved.</p><p>Plaster casts were made by animal control officers to advance their understanding of events, but without anyone having seen a dog it may never be clear what happened, he said.</p><p>The horses found their way to a curve in the road on Highway 121 just east of Old Sonoma Road around 5:15 a.m., when Trupiano, 46, came upon them on his way to work as a trucker for Biagi Brothers, the CHP said.</p><p>Trupiano struck the horses en masse and was killed immediately, the CHP said.</p><p>Two of the horses also died, while the other three were so badly injured they had to be euthanized by CHP officers, authorities said.</p>