Groups Give Horses Refuge From Flames : Safety: A ranch, county workers and volunteers reunite frantic owners with their animals.

The caller was frantic, searching for a horse.

The mare would be easy to spot, the caller told the folks at Meadows of Moorpark Equestrian Center--she’d be the one with the droopy lip.

The phone at the family owned ranch rang again, this time with a question about a horse with a blue halter. Throughout the day, horse owners telephoned with other identifying characteristics: a scar on the left rear, oversized shoes, a distinctive jaw.

Please, the callers said, are our horses there?

Bob and Joy Hallman and their two grown daughters fielded the inquiries with a warmth somehow undiminished by their lack of sleep. The family had taken in more than 70 equestrian fire refugees since Tuesday night, most of them from Topanga Canyon and most of them what the Hallmans call “back yard” horses.

Another 75 displaced horses from fire-ravaged areas were brought to the fairgrounds in Ventura.

They are being cared for by workers from Ventura County’s Animal Regulation Department, along with a small cadre of volunteers helping with feeding, watering and daily exercise, said Roger Brooks, a county animal control officer.

Among the volunteers is Leo Morgan, a homeless man who hitched a ride to the fairgrounds after fire threatened his encampment in the Malibu bluffs.

Fairground officials allowed Morgan, who calls himself the son of God, to take up temporary residence in Stall No. 16 of a large barn on the grounds.

In return, Morgan has been helping feed and water the horses, Brooks said.

It is an arrangement that Morgan finds agreeable.

“Jesus was born in a stable, so I feel quite comfortable,” he said.

His stall is outfitted with a portable radio tuned to an all-news radio station, plastic sheeting for a makeshift bed and a blanket.

Ventura County officials are seeking donations of hay to help feed the animals--all of which had been identified by late Thursday, Brooks said. The horses are eating about a ton of hay each day, he said.

On Thursday, 16-year-old Carole Caplan came to retrieve May and Lady, her quarter horses that she led to safety in the first hours of the fire. Although Carole was grateful for the temporary board, she said she was ready to bring the animals back to their pasture in the exclusive Serra Retreat area in the hills above Malibu.

“My horses aren’t happy,” she said, nuzzling one. “They want to go home.”

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For Joy Hallman, the biggest challenge is identifying horses through descriptions offered by owners over the phone.

“To their owners, who maybe own one or two horses, these animals are one of a kind. They know all their idiosyncrasies,” Hallman said. But what seemed unique to the owners sometimes offered the Hallmans very little help.

“One guy called and said, ‘It’s a quarter horse gray mare with a really nice trot,”’ she said with a laugh. “I said, ‘We’ve got 20 gray mares here, and we haven’t had time to ride them.’ ”

Throughout the fire-ravaged area, where the human tragedy has been so well-documented, another story of heroism has unfolded. Scores of volunteers came to the aid of county animal regulation workers, braving narrow roads and life-threatening conditions to rescue horses from the burning hills.

A much smaller group--including the Hallman family and Somis ranch owner Zsa Zsa Gabor among others--offered to house them.

And on Thursday, as displaced homeowners returned to their charred neighborhoods, many also began to try to track their animals down. For some, the process was a wrenching one. At the Ventura County Fairgrounds, for example, a tearful woman arrived early Thursday, searching in vain for her mustang.

“It seems the older a person gets, the more attached they get to their horse,” said Robert Meyers, a fairgrounds maintenance worker. “It’s like their child.”

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Peggy Savage, the manager of Gabor’s Silver Fox Ranch, agreed. All day Thursday, she said, people called and stopped by, hoping to find the animals they’d lost in the fire.

So far, her inventory showed 23 horses and a goat, all of them already claimed.

But still, she let heartsick horse owners walk through her barn and see for themselves.

“People have such a tie with their horses because they’re great big animals petrified by the least little thing. They’re like that old story: the elephant afraid of the mouse,” she said, adding that she has room for a few more.

“We’re not turning anybody away and it doesn’t have to be movie star horses. Zsa Zsa said to open the doors,” she said. Horses, she said, have a way of tugging at people’s hearts. “A dog seems to pretty much stay right with you and you can put him in your car. But horses are at the mercy of whoever can take them.”

This week, the merciful included a woman from Buena Park who rented a trailer and drove more than 100 miles to put herself in the way of the flames. There were the owners of Equestrian Connection, a Thousand Oaks tack shop, who helped coordinate other rescue efforts and drove their own trailers into the fray.

There was 30-year-old Nicholas Plasschaert, one of several stuntmen who volunteered their derring-do to help save Topanga Canyon’s highest-stepping residents.

“With 50 trailers, going nonstop, we must have moved 300 horses,” said the Agua Dulce resident, who also rescued dogs, ducks and turtles. “All these people were so united. As much of a rush as it is to be a stuntman, I’ve never experienced anything close to the intensity of this scene.”

Not all the horses in the fire area could be evacuated. There were 110 horses at Mill Creek Equestrian Center on Old Topanga Canyon Road, for example, and after consulting with their owners, proprietor Corey Walkey decided that was too many to move.

So, Walkey and her staff stayed with the animals around the clock, using regulation fire hoses they usually employ to hose down their ring to fight fires that burned on three sides of the property.

More than once, the animals were moved to safer ground. Wild with fright, some of the horses had to be sedated, and some suffered injuries from kicking and biting. But the horses and their protectors prevailed.

“It’s quite miraculous,” James Moore, a riding instructor, said Thursday. “The house about 300 feet from this property is totally destroyed. We just got lucky.”

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Brooks of Ventura County’s animal control office said he expects to continue boarding some horses at the Ventura County Fairgrounds at least through Monday.

It may take a week or more for some owners to complete arrangements to pick up their animals or to have their horses transferred to a private stable, he said.

To help in the search for pets of all kinds, the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has set up a toll-free locater line: 1-800-730-4226.

At the fairgrounds, Morgan will be allowed to remain in Stall No. 16 until all the horses have been retrieved by their owners, Brooks said. Then he will have to return to Malibu, or set up camp elsewhere, he said.

“He’s been helping out a lot,” Brooks said. “We offered him the Red Cross shelter, but he didn’t want to go.”

Meanwhile, at Hallmans’ ranch, the transplanted horses were getting to know each other better. It had been a rocky beginning, with so many frenzied horses arriving in the dark.

But in just two days, nature’s herding instinct had taken over, turning a bunch of strangers into old friends.

When Topanga Canyon resident Darlene Campbell came to retrieve Scooter and Little Bits, the horses of her neighbor, they looked glad to see her.

But when she led them to the trailer, 68 other horses registered their displeasure with a chorus of whinnies.

“They have become a herd in two days,” Joy Hallman said. “They’re all one group now. That’s really beautiful.”