"Tom," a retired city police horse, will go on the auction block at 11 a.m. Saturday at 331 Brunners Grove Road, Reinholds.

He is being sold to recoup unpaid stable boarding fees, according to a Dec. 4 legal notice published in the Sunday News.

And also to find him a "good home to go to," according to Terri Patterson, who said she's cared for Tom at her Brunners Grove Road farm in recent months.

No one knows where Tom will end up.

"If he's not ridable," said Pat Potter, director of Mount Hope Horse Rescue in Manheim, where Tom lived the first six months of his retirement, "he'll probably go to the kill pen."

Patterson said Tom is ridable and well-behaved in deed, and that she'll keep him if a new owner doesn't step forward.

The dark brown quarter horse has traveled a long road to get to this point.

According to news records, he worked on a ranch in Missouri before arriving here four years ago.

The city purchased him and was preparing him for duty until he injured a tendon in the spring of 2009, at age 13, said Officer Eric Lukacs of the city's mounted patrol unit.

Deemed unfit for police work, Tom retired in October 2009 with much media fanfare to Mount Hope Horse Rescue, where he was to be used in a program to teach children about horse handling.

"He was going to have a low-impact life," Lukacs said.

An October 2009 news story about Tom and the recent auction notice list a Lititz woman as Tom's owner.

Potter said the woman, who formerly worked at Mount Hope Horse Rescue, took Tom with her when she left.

The woman did not return a phone call Friday.

Contact Sunday News staff writer Jon Rutter at jrutter@lnpnews.com.