FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — His name was Champ, but he was no champion.

Severely underweight and riddled with ulcers, the brown horse had been rescued from a northern Colorado feedlot when Kassidy Webber first met him in 2014.

Then a high school sophomore living in Arvada, Webber responded to an ad for Champ at a Colorado horse rescue. The first time she saw him, three months after he had been rescued, she knew immediately that he was the horse for her — it was in his eyes….

Taking a chance, she purchased him for an insanely cheap $750 and took him home. Fittingly enough, she renamed him Chance.

She spent the following year restoring Chance’s health and trust. Slowly, he gained weight and got used to being cared for and doted on. Over the years, Webber always wondered about Chance’s backstory and lineage. Like all former race horses, he had an ID number tattoo on the inner side of his inner lip, but it was too worn to read or track.

It wasn’t until a little more than a month ago that the Colorado State University sophomore — with the help of Chance’s tattoo and a Facebook group — finally cracked the case.

Read the full story here.