Horse painting keeps galloping back to Oamaru op shop

A framed painting of a horse has been donated to an Oamaru op shop nine times since 2019. It has never sold. On Tuesday morning it was back on the wall behind the counter with a $4 tag on it.

The painting is about a metre across in a gilt frame. Volunteers date it to "about 1974, give or take". It shows a horse in a paddock. Whether the horse is a chestnut or a bay depends on who is on shift and how the light is coming in off Thames Street.

Maureen Lyttle, 74, has done Tuesdays since the shop was next to the old bakery. She keeps a record of each return in the back of the receipt book. "First time it came in a bin bag. Second time it was wrapped in a duvet. We sold the duvet, so that was something. The other seven it just turns up. Goes on the wall, sits there, nobody wants it. Then one morning it's gone. Few weeks later somebody's carrying it back in looking a bit sheepish. Not sheepish. Horsey. No, sheepish."

How the horse leaves without being sold is the bit nobody agrees on. Unsold stock goes in a free box by the door on the last Friday of the month. At least two returns have been traced to that. Neville Broad, 68, admitted to taking it home once in 2021. "Thought it'd go in the hallway. It went in the hallway. Wife came home, looked at it, looked at me. It was in the boot by tea time. Neither of us said a word. Dropped it back on the Monday. Told Maureen I'd found it. She knew."

The charity's regional coordinator said all donations were "gratefully received and assessed for saleability". Asked about the horse, she said there was "no formal process for an item that keeps coming back". She added: "There hasn't needed to be one. Until now, apparently."

The painting hangs beside a wooden sign reading LIFE, which has itself been donated twice. Maureen no longer writes a price on the tag. She writes the visit number. The tag says nine. The free box goes out again on Friday.