Horse Grieving the Loss of Her Best Friend Finds New Equine Pal in 'Disney Movie' Ending (Exclusive)

Beja the horse refused food and shelter after losing her best friend, Stone, until she met Macchiato the broodmare

A chance encounter in the rescue world has brought healing to a horse devastated over the death of her longtime partner.

For a dozen years, Beja and Stone had grazed peacefully together, the only horses remaining in the pastures of Dogwood Farm, an open-air dog boarding facility and rescue center in the Maryland countryside. The two horses ended up in the permanent care of Dogwood Farm proprietor Diane Wood when a man boarding a herd of 17 horses removed 15 and abandoned Beja and Stone.

Decades of animal rescue work have given Wood a sense of obligation to unwanted animals. For 16 years, she has volunteered and fostered with a local organization, PetConnect; she says she has found homes for more than 600 dogs. Now, these two horses needed her, and she vowed to provide love and keep them safe despite her relative inexperience with horses.

Wood could instantly see the remarkable connection between Beja and Stone. "Some horses bond so deeply—that was them," Wood tells PEOPLE. "I've never seen anything like it. Even when the farrier would come to work on their feet, they had to be right next to each other."

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As the years passed, she began to grow increasingly worried. She recognized that retired racehorse Stone, at 28, was nearing the end of his life, and the horses' little gang of two would soon winnow down to one. "So what would happen to Beja without Stone?" Wood says.

In anticipation of this pending void, the retired Federal Aviation Administration professional combed horse rescues for more than a year for another companion for Beja but had no luck.

On March 15, Stone collapsed in the pasture and died. Wood was heartbroken, but for Beja, the loss was disastrous. "In all my years of dealing with animals, I've never seen such grief, ever," Wood says.

The frantic horse ran the 26 acres of pasture for a week, crying and searching for her friend, barely eating and refusing to enter the barn. "We had to give her tranquilizers — a lot — and even that didn't do it. She could've died from this grief," says Wood.

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A PetConnect member happened to be visiting the farm that week, transporting a senior dog to Wood for fostering, and witnessed Beja's wild grieving. The member reached out for suggestions to some friends involved in the horse world, including Carrie Frey, who works for Rosie's Farm Sanctuary in Potomac, Md. Frey called Rosie's farm manager to ask if he knew of any horses aged 10-20 years who needed a home.

In an ultimate right-place-right-time moment, at the time of the call, a woman was standing with the farm manager, inquiring about potential leads for a horse she'd been trying to place for six months.

Macchiato was a bay mare in her late teens — a horse who'd been used all her life as a broodmare, producing foal after foal for profit. She was blind in one eye and unsuitable to be ridden by children at the riding center where she was housed. She needed a new home. Several conversations later, "it sounded like the two horses would be a perfect match," says Frey. "It was absolute magical timing."

The day Macchiato arrived at the farm in a trailer, the two horses began calling to each other, and Beja ran to the fence line to get closer to the other horse's vehicle. Macchiato was unloaded and brought to the fence for the first meeting. "You know, horses are not as difficult as dogs sometimes — but even so, you never know what you're going to get," says Frey. "It doesn't always just happen."

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But in this case, it did. Beja and Macchiato touched noses. The horses ran the pasture together, and once they settled down, they began to graze side by side. Each rolled in the grass one after the other—"which was super sweet because you know horses only do that when they're relaxed," says Frey.

Wood says they're inseparable, "just like Beja and Stone were, except this horse has so much more energy, and they run and play. We were all sobbing. It's like a Disney movie complete with the happy ending."

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