Robert Borba, right with lassoed suspect

Robert Borba mounted his horse and chased down the thief

Robert Borba on horseback saved the day

Twenty-eight-year-old Robert Borba is one of the last of a kind; A real, honest-to-goodness, cow roping cowboy. A hero on horseback saved the day after a man tried to make off with a bike that wasn’t his, and it all went down in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart.

The bicycle was stolen from a bike rack outside a Walmart in a town about 170 miles south of Eugene, Oregon, at around 10 am. The woman who owned the bike and several others gave chase on foot but were unable to catch him.

Then Robert brought his horse out of its trailer, mounted up, and chased the thief down, according to Chris Adams, an officer with the Eagle Point police who responded to the 911 call about the theft.

“’Stop him! Stop him! He stole my bike! He stole my bike!’ And I kind of look around and all of a sudden this guy goes whizzing by me on a bicycle. A couple of swings and then I threw it at him, just like I would a steer,” Robert said.

The cavalry arrived moments later, led by Eagle Point police officer Chris Adams.

“When we arrived, there was a large crowd standing around a younger gentleman who was on the ground, the rope around his ankle, hanging on to a tree. I’d take him by my side any day,” Adams said.

“I told the cop, I said, ‘Man, you guys ought to pick up a rope and throw that gun away. You might have better luck with it.’ He started laughing,” Robert said.

He said taking action to stop a thief was just the right thing to do. “If it was my wife or my little girl, I would hope somebody would help her if I wasn’t around,” he said.

Heroes, like cowboys, are getting harder to find, especially modest ones like Robert, who want absolutely nothing in return.

When it was, over police say all Robert asked for was his rope back. He coiled it up, tipped his hat, and then rode off into the sunset.

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