Outlined against a bright blue September sky, the Masked Rider rode again. In Texas Tech lore, her mount was named Double T, and it was to be his last ride. They led the Red Raiders out for their 1994 season opener against New Mexico as 27,234 people peered down from the stands of the 50,000-seat Jones Stadium to the Astroturf below. In Lubbock, Texas, people bleed black and red. Texas Tech paraphernalia hangs from the ceilings and on the walls of every bar, convenience store, and restaurant. Originally a prank by students who'd speed unsanctioned on horseback across the football field before games, the mysterious rider on a black horse became the official mascot at the 1954 Gator Bowl, when Joe Kirk Fulton's official entrance as the Masked Rider inspired The Atlanta Journal's Ed Danforth to write, "No team in any bowl game ever made a more sensational entrance."

For the Masked Rider's 40th anniversary in 1994, 17 former Riders came back to campus for the pre-game festivities. A brand-new saddle had been commissioned to replace the one that had been in service for every game entrance and victory lap. While over the previous 40 years there'd been a couple of incidents during the Riders' runs around the field — a trampled SMU cheerleader, a sideswiped official — no one could have imagined that the horse itself was ever in danger. But in the third quarter, during a routine run across the end zone after a Tech score, the Masked Rider fell off Double T and the horse took off for the stadium tunnel, hit the concrete, and died instantly.

"I think people were so stunned and so dumbfounded that they didn't really realize what had happened til it was all over with," said Tech coach Spike Dykes, who was on the sidelines. "He ran right behind us."

Lubbock was in shock. Double T's death was on the front page of the Sunday Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the Tuesday University Daily. Letters to the editors of both papers were heated and numerous. One Avalanche-Journal reader wrote in to recount the disappointing behavior of UNM's costume mascot Lobo Louie, who the writer claimed ran to the tunnel to look at Double T after the accident: "The UNM mascot then stopped within feet of the animal and made a gesture of shock or surprise not unlike the gesture made by McCauley [sic] Culkin in 'Home Alone'...Next, the UNM mascot went in front of the UNM section and to all appearances mocked the death of Double T by lying on his back with all fours sticking straight up in the air." The University of Oklahoma student paper ran a mock obituary and sent a letter of condolence to Tech's University Daily along with a bottle of glue labeled "Double T." Comedian Bob Goldthwait was on campus that day, and created a routine called "Mascot Suicide" that recounts the incident.

Tragedy is when our quarterback jams a finger opening a beer, comedy is when your live mascot injures a person and dies. Double T receives medical attention in this photo that appeared in University Daily three days after the incident. Double T receives medical attention in this photo that appeared in University Daily three days after the incident.

Tragedy is when our quarterback jams a finger opening a beer, comedy is when your live mascot injures a person and dies. There wasn't a lot to laugh about at Tech at that time. Goldthwait's joke hinged on the horse being driven to suicide by how horrible Tech's team was, and yeah, the Red Raiders hadn't won more than six games in a season since 1989. Attendance at home games was poor and enrollment was declining. Mercifully, the game was only broadcast on radio, so national coverage and attention was minimal. Were it to happen this season, is there any doubt it would immediately become a terrible GIF, used on the message boards of upcoming opponents to taunt Tech fans? A SportsCenter clip? But on that day in 1994, it was just a local tragedy that threatened to shut down a beloved tradition.

"People say there were apparently 80,000 people there because everybody is like, 'I was there!' I think there were maybe 30,000 people at that game, but it's funny cause people will say, 'Oh yeah, I was there, I saw it.' Probably you didn't," said Stephanie Rhode, the current director of Tech's Spirit Program. Rhode's office in the Student Union is decorated with a commemorative miniature saddle, a wall of photos of cheerleaders, and a photo of herself and former coach Tommy Tuberville with new coach and former quarterback Kliff Kingsbury's head pasted over Tuberville's face. "Of course now people have gone crazy with Coach Kingsbury. He went to school here, he gets Lubbock, he gets Texas Tech, he's one of us."

Rhode oversees cheerleaders and the costume mascot in addition to the Masked Rider program, which is a partnership with the Animal and Food Sciences department. "I lived in town but I was not at the game. Of course, it was horrible. Even if you weren't at the game it was a horrible thing to happen."

Few at the game could have seen Double T go down, said Dykes. "Fortunately, not very many people saw what happened because he ran down the sidelines and then we have that ramp that goes up out of the stadium. Very few people saw it, thank goodness, because that would have left a bad taste in their mouth."

Thank goodness.

One of the fans in attendance that day was Bobbi Britton-Stroud, a Tech graduate, 30-year Lubbock resident and current employee of the university. "It was the season opener. It was a nice day. Everybody was excited for football to get going again. There were a lot of people there and everything was rocking along really well, and then that happened and it just, it was awful. It was awful," she said.

Britton-Stroud was on the west side of the stadium, the Tech sideline and therefore above the path Double T took back towards the tunnel. "We saw the rider and the horse turn and run back toward the tunnel exit, and then we just heard this "Ahhhh," this exclamation in the crowd, and then you saw people running down toward the tunnel." Then they sat in shock waiting to hear about what they'd just seen.

"You were really concerned about the horse, because it's a beautiful animal, but the Rider? Is the Rider okay? Were they injured? It was awful. And then of course as an alum and as a fan you wonder what's gonna happen now with that tradition?"

"Whenever something like that happens," — and here she got a little tearful — "Sorry, whenever something like that happens, time just kind of stands still. It was just so surreal. It's like, 'Of course that didn't happen.' How on earth could something like that happen?"

In retrospect, stories published prior to the game take on an ominous tone. About Double T, Smart told the University Daily "Anything used to spook him. He is still a little skittish, but he has improved 1,000 percent." The new saddle that was put into service was made near College Station, home of rival Texas A&M.

Something had to be done to make sure nothing like this happened again. The Masked Rider Committee prohibited victory runs for a couple of years out of concern for the safety of both rider and horse. Stopping the runs permanently was an idea so distasteful that one of John T. Montford's first acts after being named chancellor in 1996 was to disband the Masked Rider Committee and instruct the Rider to ride after a score in a game that October. He told the Avalanche-Journal "I wanted the horse to ride, and I was frustrated with all the red tape." It was typical railroading from a man known as "Maximum John" during his time as DA, and surely a rare instance of a university system chancellor making decisions about a mascot.

The committee was swiftly reinstated and came up with a safety protocol to account for any possible on-field scenario. Today, more than 30 people are on the field to assist with the Rider's duties, including a doctor and a veterinarian. The program is a large, well-oiled machine that puts potential Riders through their paces before letting them ride out onto the field atop a massive quarter horse before thousands. Rhode said that safety procedures had been thoroughly reevaluated after the 1994 incident, and that's how the Masked Rider has continued to ride. It could have been a lot worse. "I think, I mean, you wonder if it had involved the rider, if someone had died. I mean, the horse died, but you wonder if it, I don't know, I've never actually even thought of that."

Rhode sketched out the path of the horse and rider's entrance on the field, which now includes a trained safety officer set every five yards (previously, the ROTC had been responsible for clearing the horse's path). The horse's route was also altered; instead of running around the entire field, they ride out on a diagonal across it before games, and just go across the opposite end after touchdowns.

"They don't really run out like they did anymore. They kind of trot out now instead of running the real fast dash," said Britton-Stroud. "The rider comes out at not near the breakneck speed. It was very thrilling and exciting, but, you know, there was an element of danger. And that's what makes things thrilling and exciting."

There's a strong security presence not just because animals are unpredictable, but because people can be, too. At a Baylor game several years ago, one sideline photographer tried to cross the field directly in the path of the horse's full-speed entrance run. "The rider that year said if he had put his foot out he would have hit him. It was one of those things I almost couldn't look at because I thought, 'Someone's gonna get hurt.' Luckily, the guy stopped, and the Masked Rider pulled the horse out of the path. It was very scary."

"The Masked Rider resonates with our fans so much. When people talk to me about it they'll often tear up."

More than any other aspect of the spirit squad, Rhode said Tech fans are most invested in the Rider. "It's interesting when I tell people what I do, because I do work with cheerleaders and dancers and the costume mascot. For some reason, the Masked Rider really resonates with our fans so much. When people talk to me about it they'll often tear up. I've had grown men who just almost will cry because it's so deeply meaningful."

A Texan on horseback is a naturally thrilling image for a Texan, but note that the Masked Rider is no cowboy. Cowboys don't wear a cape. The Rider is more of an outlaw with her mask and finger guns, a Spanish-flavored cross between the Lone Ranger and Zorro. There's more moral ambiguity in the figure than one usually expects from a college mascot, especially one from a region so literal that its towns are named things like Brownfield, Plainview, and Levelland.

"Having a horse as a mascot creates kind of a connection, because he stays with us. He'll stay with us probably 10 to 12 years and so because of that the fans are attached. I'm certainly attached to him," said Mackenzie White, the current Masked Rider. "And then, it's a little bit more thrilling, a horse riding across a field, than a longhorn standing on the sideline or a dog." That's what they have at the University of Texas and Texas A&M.

White is a petite young woman with dark brown hair down to the middle of her back. She decided to come to Tech because of the Masked Rider. When she was visiting schools, the director of Tech's equestrian program invited her to come down to the field during the homecoming game in 2011, and she was sold. She's been around horses her entire life, showing competitively in breed associations, and was also a cheerleader in high school, making her kind of the perfect candidate for a position that requires an experienced rider and spirit leader. White knows about the accident that happened the same year she was born. "I know everybody goes back to that and remembers it, and we try to move past that and encourage people to let it go. It's a scar in the history a little bit," she said.

White will ride out to start the 60th year of the Masked Rider atop Fearless Champion, who entered service last year. He was one of several vetted after Midnight Matador retired. "First we just go and look at them. If you're a horse person you can tell a lot," said White. "If we think they might be a good fit we test them out in a game-like situation or an actual game. Fearless Champion was just an A+ student. He was just bombproof. He's just a good horse with a good mind and always calm. He falls asleep on the sidelines."

The whole farm animal life cycle plays out on the Tech campus. A tiny goat is hanging out in the livestock pen where Fearless Champion is housed. "This is where they bring in animals for slaughter," said White. Just inside the Animal and Food Sciences building is a little restaurant, COWamongus, that serves burgers made from Tech-processed and graded meat, a product of the school's award-winning Meat Science program, whose students judge and grade animals competitively.

Of course, horses aren't food. This isn't Canada or France, and there is a moral taboo against that sort of thing here because horses are considered a different kind of animal — more intelligent, more beloved, worthy of living out their lives as working animals or pets. When Tech mascots retire, they do so in leisure on local farms.