While she recovers from eye surgery, investigators in Pennsylvania hope the a cash reward will help them find whomever who pelted an elderly mare, now called Lily, with a paintball gun, then abandoned her at the New Holland Sales Barn.

On March 14, the 20-year-old Appaloosa/Arabian-cross mare was discovered in a stall at the New Holland auction barn. The horse had been shot an estimated 130 times with a paintball gun. Rescuers from the Omega Horse Rescue, in Airville, Pennsylvania, brought Lily to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s New Bolton Center, in Kennett Square, where Rose Nolen-Walston, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, associate professor of large animal internal medicine, assessed her condition.

“She is about 100 pounds underweight, is in blind in one eye, and has a big ulcer in the other eye,” Nolen-Walston said. “She is very, very sore from being shot with the paintballs.”

On March 17, Lily underwent surgery to remove her blind right eye, said Nikki Scherrer, DVM, an ophthalmology resident at the New Bolton Center. Surgeons also studied cells from the ulcer in Lily’s left eye and found no signs of infection, she said