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Trigger the Wandering Horse causes a sensation in South Fayette
Trigger the Wandering Horse causes a sensation
Fake horse brings real joy to adults and kids in South Fayette
By Andrea Iglar
Trigger the Wandering Horse of South Fayette could appear soon on a lawn near you.
The phenomenon of the life-size plastic horse secretly moving locations overnight is like a combination of Elf on a Shelf, Flat Stanley and Where’s Waldo—but it’s uniquely South Fayette.
Trigger moves around undetected, appearing in front yards to mark special occasions. Passersby take photos with the statue and post them in a Facebook group dedicated to the equine. Neighbors dress Trigger in colorful hats, sashes and bandanas.
Students on school buses scan the landscape for the horse, and drivers slow down and do double takes, questioning if Trigger is real like the horses they just passed at Rolling Hills Ranch.
In short, Trigger has become a local sensation.
The man behind the horse is Ray Mantia.
“I didn’t expect all this, but I enjoy it,” Mantia said. “I’m glad that Trigger has become a staple in the community.”
A former beef cattle farmer, Mantia has plenty of experience with cows, but Trigger is his first-ever horse.
In 2021, Mantia moved from Washington County to 5 ½ acres on Hickory Grade Road near Parkes Farm Estates in South Fayette Township.
Two years later, his property is known as the house with the horse.
“Not knowing anybody around here when I just moved here, I certainly met a lot of people through this horse,” Mantia said.
In May, his sister Brandy was ready to toss a decades-old, 100-pound hollow resin horse statue that had stood at the entrance to a former horse farm she bought an hour southeast in Perryopolis.
Mantia saved the horse from the glue factory.
He sanded, pressure washed, repaired and painted the figure. The resulting pattern of brown and white wasn’t meant to resemble any particular breed; Mantia just painted the body to loosely resemble a horse he once rode at the neighboring horse ranch.
Then Mantia plopped the horse statue in his pasture. He called his sister and said in jest, “You should see Trigger now”— offhandedly naming the horse after the palomino famous for being the costar of cowboy actor and singer Roy Rogers from the 1930s to 1960s.
The horse hijinks could have stopped there, but they escalated after Mantia moved the horse’s location one night and received a text message from a neighbor who noticed. Mantia moved the horse again as a joke, and then moved Trigger across the street to the neighbors’ place while they were on vacation. “I sent a picture and I said, ‘The horse got out. It’s in your yard.’”
It didn’t take long for kids on school buses to start jockeying for window seats to see Trigger. This enthusiasm prompted Mantia to move Trigger regularly for their amusement. One time, he heard students chanting, “Trig-ger! Trigger!” when they spotted him.
Trigger soon generated buzz in the nearby Parkes Farm neighborhood, including a Facebook group post asking, “Anyone know the story on the ‘horse’ at the house on the corner?”
Now, residents request visits from the horse for special occasions and just for fun.
Trigger cannot fulfill every request for a visit—after all, he needs breaks from galloping around the township. But when a tour stop is scheduled, Mantia and Trigger rise at 3 a.m. and hoof it to a new spot under cover of darkness.
The next morning, residents are surprised to find a horse standing on their front lawn.
After each visit, Trigger disappears just as mysteriously.
Parkes Farm resident Shannon Barksdale photographed her family with Trigger when the horse visited her neighbor’s yard this summer.
“Trigger brings such joy to my five children,” she said. “We look for him every time we drive by, and it makes my children reminisce about the vacation we went horseback riding together.”
Stephen Kancel gave Trigger a bale of hay and fake apples when the horse visited his home on Christine Court in July. Neighbors decked out the horse with a bandana and a patriotic hat.
“It’s something out of the ordinary just to be able to have him on our property,” Kancel said. “It’s a novelty kind of thing. It’s just fun.”
Mallory Madden of the Kevington neighborhood said her family regularly rode around over the summer looking for Trigger when he wasn’t standing in his home pasture. Her three kids were thrilled when they would find the horse at neighboring homes. Then, at the request of an acquaintance, Trigger galloped over to the Madden home in August.
First-grader Mireya, 6, woke up in the morning and spotted the horse from an upstairs window. She ran downstairs screaming with delight, exciting her siblings Dax, 4, and Merric, 1.
“It was like Christmas morning when we found out Trigger was in our front yard,” Madden said. “The kids were ecstatic. It was magical.”
Mantia has received handwritten messages from people expressing their enjoyment of Trigger: “We really like your horse and hope you don’t mind we made him a sash for Memorial Day!” And: “Just a note to let you know how much we love your horse! Puts a smile on my face every time.”
Just after the Fourth of July, Trigger got his own Facebook group with the description: “Meet Trigger… the newly FAMOUS horse wandering around South Fayette. Although Trigger does not eat much he does have quite the appetite to wander the yard on his own!”
Fan photos chronicle the horse’s adventures and reveal the unbridled joy that adults and children experience when they meet Trigger.
“It’s kind of inspiring,” Mantia said. “If it makes somebody smile every day, it’s worth it.”
