We Can't Have Nice Things, Reston: The Case of the Headless Lake Anne Horse (Updated)

This troubling sight greeted visitors to Lake Anne Plaza over the Labor Day weekend, as the beloved replica of the original wooden horse that gave Reston's earliest children an alternative to cracking their skulls on concrete "playground" abutments appears to have been unceremoniously beheaded, its oaken skull nowhere to be found within the confines of the hastily erected safety barrier/crime scene tape.

Foul play? Playground accident? Jazz aficionados worked into a frenzy by an unanticipated chord modulation during this weekend's festival? If only we knew, and we only can hope the horse was more seriously hurt than the perpetrator, the end.

Update: According to a Facebook poster, "the head is at the museum and the artist is working on getting it back on." No truth to the rumor that it wound up in an RA board member's bed.