Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse

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Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse is a 1984 illustrated book and accompanying video by Sheldon Renan published in the United States by Warner Books (ISBN 0-446-38160-8). The book was designed and promoted as a contest, in which readers attempted to solve the elaborate puzzle contained in the book's story to find the location of real 1 kilogram golden horse buried in a box somewhere on public land within the continental United States. The puzzle was designed by puzzlemaster Dr. Crypton (Paul Hoffman) and was considered extremely difficult. The first reader to solve the puzzle and dig up the horse by the deadline of May 26, 1989 would get to keep the horse and would receive 500,000 USD. The solution was designed to be available either by reading the book or watching the video independently. The video, which starred Dory Dean and Elisha Cook Jr. and was narrated by Richard Lynch was available on VHS and aired on cable television, but was designed especially with the Capacitance Electronic Disc format in mind, which allowed one to shuffle through the film similarly to laserdisc and DVD in order to hunt for clues.

The deadline for the puzzle passed without any reader having solved it, and the horse was dug up by the promoters and donated to charity (Big Brothers Big Sisters of America). After the deadline, Hoffman declined to publicize the solution, however, and many readers continued to attempt to solve it after the deadline. Rumors circulated among the puzzle-solving community that a second silver horse had been placed in the location of the original horse, in conjunction with an unproduced ColecoVision game. Seven months later, Nick Boone and Anthony Castaneda, having arrived at a solution, went to Tennessee Pass in Colorado and dug up a vial on National Forest Service land that contained a congratulatory message. In the following years, the area in the vicinity of the pass summit has been ransacked by other visitors in an attempt to unearth the supposed second silver horse or any other artifact of the contest.