BONSALL, Calif. _ The Lilac Fire that ravaged northern San Diego County incited panic at San Luis Rey Downs as the flames flickered, leaving the horse training facility in profound pain.
At least 46 horses died that day, falling from fire, smoke inhalation, heart attacks and injuries. Horse hide was found far from the flames, on an aluminum gate along the track's inside rail _ a jarring sign of the chaos that swirled.
What did San Luis Rey endure in those fateful, flame-filled hours on Dec. 7 as the fire ambushed stalls holding about 450 horses at the 240-acre facility?
Walk outside Barn E, where the car of severely burned trainer Martine Bellocq was gutted by flames so white-hot that wheel rims melted into molten puddles as its owner rushed to save as many of her four-legged family as possible.
Visit the area near Barn L, where someone jumped from a feed truck to fight the fire before the vehicle mysteriously was engulfed along an open roadway _ reduced to nothing more than a frame and axles.
Kevin Habell, San Luis Rey's general manager, pulled a small, stuffed horse with a hand-written note pinned to it from the back of his truck while touring the charred site Thursday. Workers said the gift was dropped at the gate by a young girl after the merciless fire reshaped so many worlds.
"May these sweet angels run free around God's track
"So sorry for your loss
"Our thoughts and prayers are with you all
"Your Bonsall neighbors"
"Oh man, I'm going to cry again," Habell whispered.
The fire burned out. The human spirit? Hardly.
Decency proved far more difficult to douse.
What should I do? The question raced through the mind of Leandro Mora, the right-hand man of trainer Doug O'Neill _ the architect of Kentucky Derby winners Nyquist and I'll Have Another.
Mora, coughing and eyes stinging, held onto two horses as he tried to decide how to handle the dire situation.
"Right then, two horses ran by," said Mora, a 40-year veteran who paused at the harrowing image. "They were burned from end to end, the hair was gone and they were screaming. That's the moment when I made the decision to let our horses go.
"That's going to be in my brain the rest of my life. That's ugly. Ugly stuff."
Trainer Peter Miller, who had been at Los Alamitos, was forced to wait outside San Luis Rey for an hour as police locked down the area. When he finally navigated his way onto the property, the scene stunned.
"It was like a nightmare," said Miller, an Encinitas resident who had more than 75 horses stabled at the facility. "Like a living nightmare. Words can't describe seeing the horses in their stalls. The smoke and the fire were still going. It was surreal. It was worse than I ever could have imagined. Much worse."
Horrors sometimes revisited those dealing with the crisis. California Diamond, a Miller-trained horse who won nearly $500,000, had been set free, only to return to his stall _ and an unwitting death sentence.
"That's their home," Miller reasoned. "He was one of the coolest, neatest, kindest gamest horses I'll ever have. When I saw him in there, my heart sank."
Yet in that horrible wake, goodness stubbornly refuses to relent.
Horse owner Joe Ciaglia bought 200 pairs of shoes to give away to displaced workers. An anonymous donor cut a check for $28,000, allowing Del Mar employees to hand out $400 envelopes to 70 workers this week.
At the San Luis Rey Equine Hospital, husband-wife veterinarians Korin Potenza and Nick Huggons, who worked without sleep for a night and without power for three, continue donating all of their services and necessary drugs for fire victims. Trainers Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott and Mark Casse shipped a truckload of horse supplies from the East Coast.
A GoFundMe page launched by Santa Anita's Stronach Group and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club crept past $640,000 by Friday afternoon. The first payouts of $500 trickled to 224 workers. Trainers received $600 per each horse affected.
Miller, who lost five horses and one of his two barns amid the acrid, unforgiving smoke, suffered an estimated $600,000 in fire-related losses. The San Luis Rey staple received the largest initial GoFundMe payout of $30,000.
The emotional toll, though, remains uncalculated.
"In today's society, where you've got racist, misogynist, fake-news (claims), sexual harassment and all kinds of nonsense, there are good people out there," Miller said. "It's really heartening to see the goodness and kindness."
The night of the fire, Miller visited neighboring Trifecta Farms. Rumblings circulated that Conquest Typhoon, the 2014 winner of the Del Mar's Cecil B. DeMille Stakes, had found his way there.
"He was unrecognizable," said Miller, staring at the ground. "His head was swollen and the hair was singed. It was horrific. Those images will never go away."
Potenza and Huggons triaged Conquest Typhoon, smothering him in silver-and-white burn ointment and love. Potenza's sister stayed overnight to feed the horse applesauce and barn-mash soup. On Thursday, he bounced around the edge of hospital stall while happily gobbling up bananas.
The veterinarians helped walk horses down Camino del Rey to Trifecta Farms. Jumping in proved critical, because blocked roads made it impossible for horse-hauling vehicles to reach the track.
At one point, Potenza and an equine hospital intern drove past a police barricade with lights flashing in pursuit.
"I understand what they were doing," Potenza said. "They're worrying about human life first. They said humans were the main concern. I said, 'Not for us.'"
Potenza and the others were able to lead about 100 horses away from the fire that burned so intensely it melted restroom porcelain, meaning the temperature exceeded 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
"If (all involved) don't react like that, they lose 200 horses," Del Mar spokesman Mac McBride said.
David Jerkens, Del Mar's racing secretary, jumped in: "At least."
"It could have been one of the greatest horse tragedies in the history of this country," McBride said.
The veterinarians sewed up lacerations using the light of headlamps, leveraging unique detective work to identify horses. They figured out one by pinpointing unique shoeing nails imported from Europe.
"One cool story," Potenza said. "We had just discharged a little filly with colic that morning. I found her that night, around 10:30 and recognized a catheter incision. She let me lead her all the way back with just bailing twine."
The fire enveloped trainer Joe Herrick in Barn I as he rushed to save Lovely Finish, a filly who finished second in a race at Del Mar last month in her first race. The final, determined push saved the horse, but left Herrick with second- and third-degree burns on 23 percent of his body.
The flames attacked Herrick's hands, arms, face and the back of his neck.
"I got burned pretty bad getting her out," Herrick told the San Diego Union-Tribune on Friday from the burn unit of UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest. "I'm under good care, but I'm still in a lot of pain. Because of the pain, my blood pressure skyrockets. But they're treating that."
Even as Herrick detailed the additional week or two he's expected to be in the unit, he finds solace in the life he protected.
"The smoke was so thick and black," he said. "A couple seconds more and she wouldn't have had a chance."
Bellocq burned 50 percent of her body while putting herself between horses and flames. The French trainer underwent two surgeries this week and is heavily medicated and on a respirator, according to McBride, a spokesman for the family. He said her condition has been upgraded to serious but stable.
Les Baker, who works as an out-rider, continues to recover after being trampled by fleeing horses. He broke nine ribs and suffered facial lacerations while being run over by at least four horses, according to an interview with television station KNSD.
Mora, O'Neill's assistant, personally freed 35 horses as the flames whipped.
He, like so many others, refused to walk away.
"It was better to let them go than to watch them charred in a stall," Mora said. "People say it's just a business, blah, blah, blah."
The longtime horseman shook his head.
"No. No way."
The interest in all that consumed San Luis Rey Downs reached across the globe.
Miller turned down an invitation the morning after the fire to appear on the "Today" show. He also declined an appearance on Australian radio before agreeing to a BBC interview this week.
The tipping point: Miller wanted to explain how many people came to the aid of those in need.
"There were so many heroes," he said. "The workers at the track, the people at Trifecta Farms. The volunteers have been amazing. Del Mar's been amazing. There are so many.
"I've shed some tears, for sure."
Del Mar's Jerkens, the son of Hall of Fame trainer H. Allen Jerkens, showed little surprise at the actions of those at San Luis Rey.
"The fact they stayed around and put the safety of the horses first, that shows what they're all about," he said. "The horses are like their children."
Habell, the San Luis Rey GM, explained how employees did anything they could. Some grabbed dirt out of end-loaders, trying to smother rogue flames by hand. The facility lost nine of its 15 barns and demolition-related costs alone could top $1 million, he said.
In almost every direction, corrugated metal roofs have been transformed into undulating surfaces that resemble oversized, mismatched potato chips. The troublesome reminders reach all the way to dented railings on the main track from runaway horses.
"It's like getting beat up and being on the ground and saying, 'OK, OK, stop,'" Habell said. "Then when you get up, he hits you again."
The smile returned when Habell walked into the Thoroughbred Room, a place where track workers eat and waste time during their dusty days. The room filled from end to end with food and supplies from anonymous donors in just 24 hours.
There are towels and shoes, toaster ovens and toothpaste _ even bras next to Bibles written in Spanish. The offerings cover floors and walls, piled waist high in spots.
A fire led to a heartwarming flood.
"It's like the Lone Ranger," Habell said. "I didn't even get their name."
