A ride into infamy

The victorious football coach was so damn mad he couldn't even go to the locker room.

Not until he stopped seething. Not until he got answers. Not until he understood a scene so humiliating that reporters would ask him about it for decades to come.

So he stormed into the tunnel at Giants Stadium searching for his athletic director — and an explanation.

"I'm not gonna say the exact language I used," former Rutgers coach Doug Graber recalled. "But I said, 'Who's in charge of the horse?'"

Yes, horse. horse. Lord Nelson, the charismatic Rutgers mascot who prematurely galloped onto the field and into sports infamy on Oct. 8, 1994, nearly costing the Scarlet Knights a much-needed victory over Army.

For 30 years, Lord Nelson's folly has lived on as one of college football's most bizarre penalties. The mascot's 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct flag for sprinting across the field during play led to a crucial missed extra point attempt — and exemplified Rutgers' reputation as a sad sack program trapped in the twilight zone of big-time college football.

"We even got a dumbass horse around here," Graber fumed after his much-hyped team eked out the win despite being a heavy favorite.

He can laugh about it now. But that fateful autumn Saturday remains indelible for Rutgers fans old enough to remember. And Lord Nelson's inner circle will never forget it.

To this day, memories of that afternoon and the media blitz that followed haunt his former caretakers. The horse unfairly became a scapegoat for a struggling team, they say. He was only doing what he was told to do, they insist. And he was the last horse that deserved to become a punchline — or target for abuse.

Yet the penalty was the first sentence of Lord Nelson's widely disseminated Associated Press obituary in 2015, cementing a good horse's tainted legacy.

"People can be very ignorant," said Kennis "Buttons" Fairfax, a horse trainer who was on the field that day and still works with the Scarlet Knight mascot. "A lot of people don't have a clue of the true story."

On the eve of the 30th anniversary, NJ Advance Media set out to find that story. We tracked down the Medieval Times knight who rode Lord Nelson, the veteran referee who threw the penalty flag, the players affected by the infraction and stunned eyewitnesses.

Together, they tell the story of a revived tradition, a season on the brink, a moment of chaos and an unwitting mascot in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Rutgers (4-1) attempts another rebirth in Greg Schiano's second tenure as coach, we examine this rich piece of Scarlet Knights star-crossed folklore like no one has before.

"I still get comments, like, 'Don't let the horse run out on the field,'" Fairfax said. "People's perception is that the horse just ran out on the field (on his own). And that's totally untrue."

Humble beginnings

Karyn Malinowski, director of Rutgers' Equine Science Center: I was hired in 1978 as a professor, and the vice president of public safety called me one day and said, "You are the horse person, so I need you to find me three horses."

Wendy Gale-Hale, member of the student mounted patrol unit: The general public is usually afraid of horses. They respect horses because of their size. A human being cannot run that fast, and a patrol car cannot get into places where a horse could.

Karyn Malinowski: So we purchased Lord Nelson, who was then 5 years old. He was about 16 hands, a good size horse. He was determined. His work ethic was beyond anything I have ever seen. He loved his work. He loved people. His main job was to patrol, to walk calmly around campus.

Wendy Gale-Hale: He had a really kind eye. It would kind of draw you into him. There's some people that we look at and just want to know them. And Nelson had that quality. He was a magnet.

Jorge Hernandez, mascot caretaker: He was just a really, really calm horse. Anyone could come up and rub on him and give him a carrot.

Wendy Gale-Hale: He just wanted to be with you.

Buttons Fairfax, horse trainer: If he was a person, he would probably go down in history as one of the best people you could ever be around.

Karyn Malinowski: We also had a horse named Ace and one named Chester. The three of them commuted to New York to train with the New York Mounted Patrol Unit.

Jorge Hernandez: They would drive them into New York every day to train, and then bring them home in the afternoon. He was trained to do traffic work and police work and crowd control.

Wendy Gale-Hale: When Nelson went out on patrol and had to make a stop and the guy didn't want to stop the car, Nelson climbed the hood.

Karyn Malinowski: Lord Nelson liked to play tricks on people. He would challenge you. And that was, I think, part of his strange sense of humor or his wicked sense of humor.

There was an incident where police were called for a perpetrator that was on the Cook Campus. Lord Nelson came galloping with an officer on his back across the lawn of the administration building. Nelson just dropped his shoulder, the officer came off and his weapon was dislodged into our big Passion Puddle, which is a huge pond. The entire pond had to be drained and dredged because we had to recover that weapon.

Making of a mascot

Then a group of fans and alumni helped revive the live horse in the early '90s through a partnership with the burgeoning entertainment restaurant chain Medieval Times. But their corporate partner changed the terms of the deal, saying it could provide a rider for the 1994 season, but not a horse.

Buttons Fairfax, horse trainer: We tried out a couple of horses that didn't quite make it. We shot off firecrackers around them. We would have flags flashing in front of them. We exposed them to traffic to see how they responded. They didn't quite make the grade.

Jorge Hernandez, mascot caretaker: I was pretty good friends with the chief of police, and Nelson was just sitting around in the barn and doing, really, nothing.

Buttons Fairfax: So the request went out: Can we use him for a football game?

Karyn Malinowski, director of Rutgers' Equine Science Center: The crowd? That was a given. No problem. He also was always on campus. He was always in crowds surrounded by students petting him. He was tied on George Street to a meter for hours on end as a police officer.

Buttons Fairfax: We did photoshoots with the cheerleaders. We did photo shoots with the gymnastics team. Whatever we asked Lord Nelson to do, he did. He did a shoot with the cannon guys, and the cannon guys shot the cannon off. He just looked at the rings from the blast. Never flinched.

Karyn Malinowski: His favorite part of the home football games on Saturdays was to do the tailgate before the game. He would stop at everybody's tailgate and just graze on what he wanted. He loved hot dogs, but with mustard and relish, no ketchup. He loved all kinds of food, except tomatoes and Cheetos.

Buttons Fairfax: He brought a different kind of spirit to the football program. They were not winning yet, but he brought a sense of pride because you have a mascot not too many other schools have.

Wes Bridges, Rutgers fullback: We loved the horse. It felt big-time to us, and it was really cool to run out behind that horse before every game. There definitely was an intimidation factor.

Knights on the brinkRutgers hadn't been to a bowl game since 1978. But the 1994 squad seemed destined for a breakthrough. The Scarlet Knights assembled a "Thunder and Lightning" backfield with highly touted runners Bruce Presley and Terrell Willis. The team also boasted promising young quarterback Ray Lucas and future All-American tight end Marco Battaglia. Rutgers' underdog program was ready to take on the world ... or so it thought.

Bruce Johnson, voice of Rutgers radio: Rutgers was always the redheaded stepchild. Rutgers just couldn't get total respect.

Terrell Willis, Rutgers running back: No one was really talking about us. Nobody was really saying anything, and then all of a sudden, we ended up having the No. 1 backfield in the country. The program was just starting to do something.

Doug Graber, Rutgers head coach: We had a good team. And my team and my staff, we had the feeling that nobody could beat us at home.

Joe Jennings, Rutgers season ticket holder: Hopes were very high that we were going to have an extremely successful season.

Wes Bridges, Rutgers fullback: We really were looking at that year as our turn to crack through.

Wes Bridges: We had probably one of the toughest schedules in the country. Games like Army, they really were must-win games.

Joe Jennings: Not only should it be a win, it should be an easy win. It should be a walkover.

Edward Duborg, Rutgers kicker: I was, as a kicker, expecting it to be a pretty easy game.

But this is Rutgers. The football team doesn't just lose. It fails in excruciating fashion. Like that game in 1883 when it surrendered to Yale, 98-0. Or that debacle in 1980 when it might have tied No. 1 Alabama if not for what Sports Illustrated declared "a mental boo-boo" by Scarlet Knights coach Frank Burns. Or that collapse in 2012 when Rutgers blew a 14-3 lead late in the third quarter and lost to Louisville in the de facto Big East championship game.

Doug Graber: We were really struggling against them that whole game. The wishbone offense was really tough to stop. They had the lead the whole game.

Edward Duborg: We're losing 14-10. It's the fourth quarter.

: We finally scored to take the lead, so everybody is excited. An extra point would have given us a three-point lead.

A penalty for the ages

David Graham, Lord Nelson's rider: I was the newly appointed head knight in the New Jersey Castle, so they used to send me on the more pertinent marketing events. The Scarlet Knight was one of them since they got to plaster Medieval Times on the side of the horse.

Jorge Hernandez, mascot caretaker: At that point, we really didn't even have a knight outfit.

David Graham: I don't know if you've ever watched " Monty Python and the Holy Grail ." You remember what the knights were dressed like? It's a tunic — also called a surcoat — with a representation of chainmail underneath.

Jorge Hernadez: They were using just whatever they wore at Medieval Times. We weren't quite ready with the suit of armor yet.

David Graham: Whenever Rutgers would score, they'd have me run out and do little things around the end zone. You see the big red knight running across the field. Everyone would love that.

Jorge Hernandez: We were allowed to run the horse after the score and go down the field. But this time around, we had a misunderstanding.

Edward Duborg, Rutgers kicker: I remember a delay. I was like, "What's going on right now?" As a kicker, you want to get out there, get the ball through the uprights and then get off the field. You don't want to be waiting around.

Jorge Hernadez: You know how they put the net up on the goalposts so the ball doesn't go through it?

David Graham: Somehow, when they scored the touchdown, the extra point net got stuck.

Jorge Hernadez: The net was all tangled up.

David Graham: I don't know who, but somebody said we needed to kill some time. So they were telling my marketing director that I needed to ride down the field to get the crowd pumped up. I remember saying, "That's a penalty. I can't do that." And they're like, "Go now! Go now!"

Jorge Hernandez: It wasn't one of us, I can tell you that. So it had to be one of the grounds people or the other people who were in charge of putting up the net.

, penalized for joyriding on the field during the '85 Orange Bowl. He didn't want to draw a penalty. But he didn't want to disobey orders either.

Edward Duborg: Suddenly the horse goes down the sideline.

Doug Graber, Rutgers head coach: The freakin' horse is on the field. I don't know what the hell's going on.

Al Hynes, head official: They were set up for an extra point. And after I blew the whistle for the play to start, the Rutgers horse ran up the field.

David Graham: The ref was talking to the Rutgers coach about something. He was backing up onto the field as we were cantering across. I wanted to get across the field pretty quickly so we wouldn't draw a penalty. I think we startled him.

Al Hynes: It's one of those things where you say, "Oh, no." But everybody in the place sees the horse running up the field. So you're kind of obligated to throw it.

Edward Duborg: Next thing you know, there's a flag on the field, and I'm like, "What the hell is this?"

Kevin MacConnell, Rutgers assistant athletic director: We're in the sponsor box. And then my assistant, Karen, said, "Why did they throw a flag?" I'm like, "I don't know." She said, "Could it be on the horse?" I'm like, "No. It can't be on the horse. ?"

Buttons Fairfax, horse trainer: It didn't warrant a penalty to me. Even if they had run a play, it would not have interfered with what was going on with the game.

Al Hynes: The play was technically going on when the horse came on the field. Plus, if I didn't throw it, my supervisor was in the press box. And that would be a downgrade for me.

David Graham: It's safe to say it's unsportsmanlike conduct, maybe undue celebration.

The twilight zoneThe penalty was only the beginning of the meltdown. Players remember Graber going "absolutely ballistic" on the sideline, throwing his hat in a legendary tantrum. Rutgers' terrible misfortune was about to get worse.

Al Hynes, head official: I went over to Graber because he wanted an explanation. And I told him that the Rutgers horse ran up the field, and therefore I penalized them. He denied the horse was Rutgers'. He said, "That's not our horse." I said, "Well, there's a knight on it. In my opinion, it's a Rutgers horse."

Doug Graber, Rutgers head coach: I was cussing and screaming like you can't imagine.

Bruce Johnson, voice of Rutgers radio: That was the era when Rutgers just could not get out of its way. You know, here's Rutgers again, just can't catch a break. And this time, it's from their own horse.

Wes Bridges, Rutgers fullback: I don't think any of the players were really that taken aback by it or concerned by it. We were confident that we were going to win that game. But I do remember Doug Graber just having an absolute fit. He was beet red and just lost his mind.

Joe Jennings, Rutgers season ticket holder: Coach Graber was so livid at the penalty I think he'd have fed the team horsemeat if they hadn't won.

Edward Duborg, Rutgers kicker: Higgins was my holder all year. But suddenly now he's in quarterback mode. And he's like "We gotta make this, Eddie. Let's go!" He's in my face mask, and I'm a pretty chill dude. So I was like, "I got it. Don't worry."

Robert Higgins, Rutgers quarterback: I'm thinking, "Please make this kick. You gotta make this kick." I can't believe we just got a penalty for a horse running on the field. But in the back of my head, I'm like, "l know he's going to miss this kick now." Because this is what happens to Rutgers.

Bruce Johnson: We missed the extra point. And Doug Graber went nuts.

Doug Graber: To say I'm pissed off would be an understatement.

Kevin MacConnell, Rutgers assistant athletic director: I'm just like, "This can't be happening. This cannot be happening."

Bruce Johnson: My first comment probably was, "Only Rutgers."

Robert Higgins: Whatever can happen would happen to Rutgers.

Terrell Willis, Rutgers running back: It kind of felt like you were in a twilight zone with some of the stuff that was going on at a major university.

Edward Duborg: I was absolutely sick. And just praying we somehow found a way to win the game.

David Graham, Lord Nelson's rider: Oh, great. Now I'm gonna get yelled at for causing the penalty.

Joe Jennings: We would have probably been rolling in our seats if he had made the kick. But when he missed the kick, and we're still struggling, then we're thinking, "Oh, that damn horse could cost us the game."

The scapegoat ... or scapehorseArmy returned the ensuing kickoff into Rutgers territory. But Graber's defense held, forcing Army into a decisive 50-yard field goal attempt ... that it missed. Rutgers escaped with a win, but the result was secondary. Lord Nelson's penalty became the central storyline in every newscast and newspaper.

"Graber wants horse's hide," read one headline. "LORD NELSON: Horse almost costs Knights," declared another.

Willis jokingly told reporters, "They should send that horse to the glue factory," while Presley quipped that Graber would have shot the horse if Rutgers lost the game. The players' colorful humor was ripe for misinterpretation when the quotes landed in the Sunday papers.

Doug Graber, Rutgers coach: We really should have lost the game because of the horse.

Buttons Fairfax, horse trainer: After the game, I can't tell you ... people throwing bottles at us. People cursing us out.

David Graham, Lord Nelson's rider: There were some unpleasant things said.

Buttons Fairfax: We had to throw the horse in the trailer to keep him from getting hit by beer bottles and whatnot. But that's part of the story they don't tell.

Jorge Hernandez, mascot caretaker: There was a change in Nelson when we were leaving the stadium. He knew something was not right.

We never had an issue loading him or unloading him. But that day after the game, when we were leaving, he refused to get in the trailer. We had a devil of a time, to the point where he actually went up on his hind legs and reared up, refusing to go.

Doug Graber: I go to the press conference after the game. And I think on live TV I used the F-word. I might have done it multiple times. I was so damn mad. It took me a couple hours to calm down.

Joe Jennings, Rutgers season ticket holder: It was embarrassing. Imagine Rutgers having a disappointing win.

Buttons Fairfax: Sometimes people look for excuses. Army came prepared to play, and maybe Rutgers wasn't as prepared as they thought they were. So you look for a scapegoat. It was the horse.

David Graham: It was on SportsCenter. It was all the rage that weekend.

Joe Jennings: The story was really the horse penalty. And then, oh, by the way, Rutgers won.

David Graham: It wasn't his fault, whatsoever. On his own volition, he wouldn't have ridden across the field. I remember the next game they had the announcement, "Lord Nelson, please keep off the field."

Buttons Fairfax: That's all we heard the next couple games.

Karyn Malinowski, director of Rutgers' Equine Science Center: I called the papers. I was furious. I said, "This horse was just doing what he was asked to do."

The game was a fitting metaphor for Rutgers' disappointing 5–5–1 season. By the time the Scarlet Knights lost to Pittsburgh, 35-21, in the Nov. 19 season finale, Lord Nelson's legacy had been cemented.

He had no voice. No way to defend himself. Did he even know what happened? Was he hurt by the jeering critics? If only a reporter could have stuck a microphone in his face ...

Karyn Malinowski: He probably would have said an expletive first.

A tainted legacy

He had no children — "that we know of," Malinowski said.

Buttons Fairfax, horse trainer: He endured it with us, and I think had he been a different horse, that outcome might have been different.

Jorge Hernandez, mascot caretaker: He should be remembered for all the great work that he did. Nelson was just incredible.

Buttons Fairfax: The referees now look forward to the horse. A lot of them come over and take pictures with the horse. There's people who say, "I only come to the games to see the horse run out."

Joe Jennings, Rutgers season ticket holder: It's a great tradition. I love having the horse come out on the field at the beginning of the game. Lord Nelson was in a class by himself

Karyn Malinowski, director of Rutgers' Equine Science Center: Lord Nelson was the most unique horse that I ever met in my life of 70 years.

Buttons Fairfax: If there was a Hall of Fame for excellence, I will put Lord Nelson in. To me, he should be in Rutgers' Hall of Fame.

Edward Duborg, Rutgers kicker: The horse was obviously only doing what it was told to do. I don't know who the heck could be mad at a horse at this point.

Doug Graber, Rutgers coach: I have nothing against the horse. But the rider and whoever was in charge, I still have a lot against.