Firework leads to death of horse

ONE of Uckfield s leading animal lovers has called for greater control of fireworks after a stray cracker led to the death of one of her horses.

Pauline Grant, of Sussex Horse Rescue in Hempstead Lane, discovered one of the centre s mares lying in a ditch with a badly broken leg on Saturday morning.

It is thought she had fallen in on Friday night after being startled by fireworks set off in the area. A number of empty firework cartridges were found in the field where she fell.

A vet was called but had to destroy the mare called Morse because of the severity of her injuries.

Pauline said: 'On Friday night very large rockets were coming into the field where Morse had been. We found her the next morning in a very distressed state in a ditch. We called the fire brigade to try and get her out, but they weren t able to, so we called out a vet who had to shoot her in the ditch.

'She had broken her hock (a joint on her hind leg) so badly bone was poking through her flesh. We found fireworks in the field. I don t think she d ever seen or heard fireworks before. It looks like she panicked, bolted and fell in the ditch.

'It would be much better if we could have one big organised firework display rather than all these fireworks set off by individuals. It goes on so long. It lasts for about five nights nowadays.

The Sussex Express featured Morse earlier this year when she was one of two starving mares rescued by the centre. Both horses were in foal at the time. The foal Morse produced this summer Katya, now five months was with the mare when she died. Pauline said: 'The foal is just traumatised. She s going around looking for her mother. When we got Morse out of the ditch, Katya was still trying to suckle her. It s very sad.

The well-known animal lover her work with horses has been featured on television added that many of the centre s 74 horses were kept in fields overnight rather than in stables because a lot of animals do not like to be put in stables.