ive just been looking at the stolen horses list?

It's incredibly scary. There are horse thieves around where I live, closest stolen was 20 miles away.

Mine and my friend's horses are both quite 'popular' horses at the moment, as reliable looking cobs to unsuspecting first time owners or unfortunately as meat horses as that is where a lot of these stolen cobs go, hence why they never get found.

No lost and found stories but, We had a guy in a van follow us down the road once, he stopped and looked at a couple of horses down the road whilst following us - and I know for a fact he had nothing to do with the owners as I knew them personally. We carried on past our house in the end and shot up a bridle path, waited 10 minutes half way up and then came back and he'd gone. We immediately phoned the owners of the horses down the road (surprisingly also traditional cobs) and they had them moved that afternoon, but I am more than sure he had his eye out for horses - he had that look about him, he wasn't right at all.

Luckily we do have a very close horsey community near me, horse owners are quite few and far between but the ones that do own are extremely noticed of each other's horses and if something's wrong the word gets around really quickly.

I know plenty of stolen horse stories, we live near Appleby Horse Fair and the number of thefts seem to 'magically' go up when the travellers come to town. Fingers crossed I don't hear of any more this week and for everyone else who lives around here!

I only know of one happy ending, that took 5 years and a lot of work from my poor friend, she eventually ended up buying her horse back from her new owners, who had bought her with a false passport from a dodgy dealer, who was never traced. She still has her though, now growing old gracefully on a VERY secure paddock.

cobby types are very popular with travelling/gypsy communities,especially for cart/trap pulling,and unfortunately the bad ones do take to kidnapping horses,or empty stables of tack.

have witnessed them stealing hay from another gypsy before,apparently this is common as well.

watch out for any knots and loops tied in the horses tail,this is getting more common in uk as a way to sign to other gypsies coming later which horses to take.

I heard that if your horse is stolen you have a 99% chance of never seeing them again. Isn't that horrible. What a heartbreak.

i dont know any but gyspy near me stole some horses and at the time my horse was living out i was sooo scared for her as she means the world to me - and they had broke in at the house she was staying at but now we have moved thank god

even tho this yard is 10000X Safer im still scared about her but i guess thats love lol x