Our Big, Expensive Gypsy Horse Problem Week In Week Out

A familiar sight across Wales, horses left to roam and fend for

themselves. Keep still. But not always in the places where you

expect to find them. This little fellow is out again. Right down

there it is a really busy road. Horses which have been dumped,

abandoned or roaming around desperate for food are causing a

major headache for the authorities. Can you just... It is my horse.

is costing hundreds of thousands of pounds and there are fears for

public safety and the animals' welfare. These poor horses will

need someone to look after them. We are the only choice they have.

is a wonder no one has been killed yet. Sadly, when that does happen

they will confront the issues. Tonight we ask whether the law is

failing to stop this, as we investigate the mayhem across Wales

From the board in the East to Pembrokeshire in the West, horses

are causing chaos. -- from Newport. I have been investigating the

problem of stray, abandoned and dumbed Welsh gypsy cobs since the

beginning of this year. I am going to find out here is involved and

what is being done to tackle it. This is where it all began, in the

January and more than 30 horses are desperately searching for food.

There is virtually no grass left, and they resorted to eating young

trees. Some do not make it. They have been dumped on land owned by

the Woodland Trust near Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan, by an

unidentified owner. This has been dubbed fly-grazing. And it was not

a one-off. Days later, I was reporting from Cosmeston, where

more animals had been abandoned on council land. One of the hotspots

for fly-grazing and horses wandering around, looking for food

wherever they can find it, he is here in the Bridgend area. Keep

still. Keep still. Stay, U2. This video was captured in the Cefn Glas

estate in Bridgend. Nearby, at Bryntirion Comprehensive School,

horses are a constant concern. These are horses often find their

way on to school grans, causing what we have been told his

thousands of pounds worth of damage. And the mix of wild animals and

children spells danger. We have just seen a group of 11 horses who

have been galloped out of the school grounds here by some people

who have turned up after a call to tell them they were on the school

grounds. We are now pursuing them up the road in Bryntirion, up the

main high-street, through a built- up area. The horses managed to find

their way back on to the school grounds. Then the two people

involved in rounding them up stop to challenge us. You all right?

are filming the horses. You are with the horses. Bit unusual.

saw you trying to round them up. You are not rounding them up? I

thought you were. The driver of the 4x4 is Tony Price,

the son of one of the biggest horse breeders in the UK. His name, Tom

Price, will crop up again in my investigations. The head teacher is

so concerned with the problem he is meeting with the Bridgend M P

Madeleine Moon. Yesterday -- he estimates the cost to the school

due to the horses at �50,000. could have used the money to

improve the school environment. Horses get onto the playing field

so often that sports day was cancelled last year and rugby

lessons are regularly called off. Horses tend to come here, through

the front gates, and are here, three, four, 5, 6, 7 horses at a

time. The children went quietly towards the horses and one day they

will no doubt be kicked. We have horse owners who are irresponsibly

cherry-picking where they can drop off and just deposit their horses

in fields, often late at night, 11:00pm, 12:00pm at night, and

people wake up and suddenly they have a new problem in the community,

of a large, wild and uncontrolled horses. It does not take us long to

find more horses. This time they have been wandering on a road just

a mile from the school. We have come down here to brand them up and

send them back. We have to get a barrier out and hopefully keep them

out. They are causing a problem for motorists? Yes. They have been all

over here. Nobody quite knows the scale of the

problem, but it is estimated hundreds, possibly thousands of

forces, across South Wales and West Wales, which are allowed to roam

freely, causing all manner of mayhem. -- thousands of horses. He

has been going on for the years but it appears to have got to much

worse misery. Last year for example, we could expect 25 incidents per

month. They were predominantly be of an animal welfare nature. Last

month, 497 incidents. Part of that would be because we have responded

positively, engage with our communities.

There are reasons why this seems to be getting worse now. Keeping

Daedalus Airfield is the expensive and fewer people are buying them,

driving the values down. They need to have passports and microchips

and that is adding to the already costly business of owning a horse.

One of the reasons why this has been so difficult to resolve is

because so many agencies are involved. Local authorities, the

police, the RSPCA, governments in Wales and England, all with

different responsibilities and it all cost money. Who is going to pay

back cost? What we cannot allow to continue to happen is that it is

the taxpayer. We have to find a more efficient and effective way.

Aware of being able to trace the animals back to their owners and

making those owners accountable, in courts, and paying the fines that

they should be paying to dissuade them from carrying on his way.

addition to the enforcement costs two authorities, it is also

charities who have to bear the burden and help pick up the pieces.

This is one of the lucky ones. He wrote, in fine health now, but only

after a massive and costly rescue operation in Newport. -- Hero.

There was absolutely nothing in the field for them to eat and they were

very hungry. There were 35 of them. We decided to take some hay down

just so they were not too hungry and whilst we were there, one of

the girls with this came rushing, quick, quick, there is a force in a

ditch. And they're sure enough was the poor horse in the water with a

barbed wire tangled around its legs. So we called the fire brigade

because we could not get it out. It was too big for us. When we got him

out, we did not think he was going to live. He just lay there. We

managed to get him going and got him on his feet and into our

trailer. While we are filming and the charity's farm in Mahmut Schep,

a call asking for help comes in. There is a two-to-three months old

foal that they cannot trace the mother. It is in a field with some

other mares that are stopping it from eating. The bet has been

called out and the bet has signed it over to the council. -- are the

vet. So now the council has asked if we will collect it because it

will not survive where it is. 18 from the charity set off to try

to rescue the foal and they invite us to join them.

But will they succeed? It is not only charities you have

to bear the cost. This is Tremorfa Park. It backs onto the scrubland

outside Rover Way. Local councils are spending hundreds of thousands

to try to tackle this, and in Cardiff Bay have employed Wales'

first wards warden. How did you get in here? The council have just

spent a fortune on new fencing. I should go and see if he's going to

be approachable. The horse should not be here, and loses suspects it

has been deliberately placed here to praise and does not have their

registered owner. Shall we find out. Oh, make a call to run the station

to let them know that it has been seized, where it has been seized

from. -- to run the station. If an owner comes forward, there is a

fine to pay but they can have it back as long as they can prove it

is theirs with a hauls passport. If not, we will go down the road of

looking for another cause for him. Lucy has called the police for

back-up but before the horse is removed, she wants to check if its

owner is in the area. The higher. Have you got a passport for it?

but I can get one. This caused is actually being seized by a quarter

of cancer. -- by Cardiff Council. It is not allowed to be on the spot.

Now, it is my horse. The horse is led away by a young man claiming to

be its owner. Lucy calls the police again to find out where they are.

At the end of the day, I cannot fight them. Again, if the issue

with the police is that they just do not respond, time after time.

However, they have just said they are going to send a unit out now,

which is a bit late. Cardiff Castle spent about �100,000 every year on

tackling their horse problem. -- Cardiff Castle Spence. They believe

they are winning. But in other areas it is still causing concern,

like here in the Vale of Glamorgan. Damage to this community would --

wood in Wick has been estimated at between �5,000 and �10,000 since

the beginning of the year. Clearly, the horses were eating everything

they could get hold of while they were here. When they finished the

grass, they started to eat the trees. The Woodland Trust put up a

14 Day abandonment notice, which meant the horses' owners had to

remove the animals with in two weeks or they could be re-homed,

sold or put to sleep. All of the sanctuaries were formed. No one

would accept them. We were faced with the prospect of having to have

these beautiful animals destroyed. But shortly after the notice ran

out, the horses was spirited away Fly-grazing, when horses are placed

on private land, effectively allowing the animals to eat for

free, is not a new phenomenon. When he is not leading the Conservatives

in the National Assembly, Andrew Davies farms hundreds of acres in

the Vale of Glamorgan. A couple of years ago, he was the victim of

fly-grazing, too. The was by chance that we saw them quite early on on

the property and we were able to take action. If they had been there

any length of time, they could have been on the main arterial road

between Cardiff and Bridgend, or they could have broken into a

residential property and caused considerable damage. Being the

owners of the land that the livestock would have come from,

ironically we would have been responsible. He says problems

caused by horses have been going on for years and he says it is time

something was done to tackle it We have seen pictures on the TV of

horses dead in fields, horses in very poor condition. This is

something here in the 21st century we shouldn't allow to continue.

Dozens of horses were illegally dumped on land here next to Cardiff

Airport. There are even reports of fly-grazing on this round-about,

causing an obvious for motorists. The problem became so acute that

the Vale of Glamorgan Council had to round up 68 of them, that were

then transported to various imagine welfare charities across the UK.

And this is where 23 of those horses ended up, nearly 300 miles

away at Redwings Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk. There is a whole host

of things that can spread from horse to horse. What we're keen to

do is to protect our horses from the unknown. Nick is going to show

me those horses brought here. ponies are very young, around about

six years of age, some younger, some older. Generally, horses are

suckling from their mother at six months of age. In my opinion these

guys are too young to be in that field. Sadly, there were three of

them that were not really going to cope with the journeys to the

various charities. They were sort of succumbing to respiratory

conditions which sadly necessitated us - the only humane act we could

do for them was to put them to sleep. To my mind as a welfare

person, that's where I think this owner has a big chunk on their

conscience. But proving exactly who the owner is is a headache for

everyone involved in trying to combat this issue. It is a big

challenge for us and the local authorities to actually effectively

enforce it because it's resource intensive for what's at the moment

seen as a relatively low priority. The law says all horses over six

months old must have a passport, and since 2009, they must also be

microchipped - all of which adds to the expense of keeping the horses.

Hello? Yeah, yeah, I'm there now. Since I started investigating this

issue, the phone hasn't stopped ringing with concerned people

telling us the problem is getting worse, and they feel nothing is

being done to tackle it. There are an Army of animal lovers on the

internet. They use sites such as Facebook to alert one another about

animals in distress and those that have been dumped on private land.

Heather Hooley helped set up one such site, and she's critical of

the lack of action by the authorities. They need to prove the

ownership of those horses. They can do it by CCTV. It can be done with

minimum manpower. They choose to just mop it up and actually deny

that there is an issue, and yet there you are with these large

horses in children's play areas on housing estates - herds of hundreds,

hard to find, moved around at night, risk the public. It's a wonder

nobody has been killed yet, and maybe, sadly, when that does happen,

then they will confront the issues. Heather sees no future for the

stray horses that are all over South Wales. Where are they going

to end up? They will end up as dog food. It has devalued a once

sought-after breed. They are now no more than pet food on hoofs.

Another member of the Facebook group has been filming the plight

of a group of fly-grazing horses in organ, only a few metres from where

the council rounded up horses last month, including those that ended

up at the Redwing Sanctuary. These were the ponies that were dumped in

Ruse just over two weeks ago. They're getting worse every day now.

They have had hay twice from the RSPCA but they're still eating it,

even though most horses would turn their noses up at it. The woman,

who doesn't want to be identified, has been concerned about the

welfare of a number of the horses here. The condition is quite poor

now, and she's starting to look quite bony around the pelvis. And

you can see this one is coughing few days now. It's gotten worse, so

he's going to have to be seen to. The RSPCA did remove the foal that

was coughing and a number of the other horses from the field in Ruse,

but the future for the rest of the animals is uncertain.

Why are so many horses - and they nearly always seem to be Welsh

gypsy Cobs being abandoned on land to fly graze or being left to roam

for themselves? Come on, boy. Francis takes in rescued horses at

his farm in Pembrokeshire. He works closely with the gypsy community

and says those who trade in horses have been hit hard by the recession.

A year ago they could sell, having passported and microchipped them,

they could sell them at a profit at any of the marts. But now they're

not worth the petrol to take them there. You can buy a yearling colt

of most breeds for ten guineas. Which is a ridiculous situation.

Francis says horse breeders need to take a much more responsible

attitude to their business. Until people stop this breeding for

breeding's sake, hoping the market is going to be there, this problem

We're back with the horse rescuers, and they've arrived here in the

Vale of Glamorgan. You know, we have an injured one - it's a foal,

and the mother can't be located at the moment. The police have also

been called to assist. Sometimes some of the owners will turn up,

and they're not happy about their horses being seized. We're here to

prevent a breach of the peace and basically make sure that everything

carries on smoothly. The young foal is caught and given a quick check-

up. He's very thin, isn't he? can feel his spine there. Yeah,

yeah. We need to get him back to base. This often indicates worms.

The foal was found to be riddled with worms and lice and was very

thin. A major horse breeder, Tom Price, admits to keeping horses

here, but says they don't all belong to him, including Wellie.

Just a few days before we filmed here, people working for Mr Price

turned up at 10.00pm at night. Mr Price admits they moved 15 horses

from this field. He says he moved the animals at night because it was

the only time a contractor was available. He says he wanted to

move them as his lease had ended. We understand that arrangement

ended 18 months ago. Wellie, the foal, will be taken to

the Redwings charity in Norfolk and hopefully nursed back to good

health. She could be rehomed or may have to live at the sanctuary. With

so many animal welfare concerns from members of the public and from

charities, there's been criticism that more isn't being done to help.

Animal welfare is the responsibility of both local

authorities and the RSPCA, who last year investigated nearly 2,000

complaints involving horses in Wales, and many had been fly-grazed.

The mere fact that a horse is being ply-grazed is not a reason for the

RSPCA to pick the animal up. The RSPCA will come in, and we'll offer

advice to horse owners. We will help the horse owners. It's only in

a very small minority of cases where we'd look at taking further

action, but in the vast majority of those 2,000 cases, there was no

need for the RSPCA to step in and take ownership or responsibility

for the animal. One name which keeps cropping up more than any

other during my investigations is Tom Price. He runs a large

operation based in the Vale of Glamorgan exporting animals all

over the world. His website says he has 1,500 hoarses. Some experts

estimate he now has many more. He has been lauded by some people who

describe him as the most respected gypsy horse breeder in the world

and the King of gypsy horses. People who are helping to tackling

the horse problem in South Wales have told us about their

involvement with Tom Price. I have known him for a long time. I did

try and help earlier in the year when he did actually admit he had

too many horses and needed to find homes for them. I said I'd try and

help him. When he discovered it wasn't going to be coming through

our society, it was just people that were kind enough to take them

on, the fact that they'd be sold eventually, he got cross and said

he wouldn't do it, which was sad. Remember this driver and his

colleague we met earlier? The driver is Tom Price's son Tony. The

two were rounding up horses at the school. Mr Price admits keeping

horses in the area, and says he did assist and take them to a place of

safety. As it turned out they weren't his horses. We wanted to

speak to Mr Price, but he refused. Instead, he gave us a statement

saying he's a responsible horse owner. He says he had become the

focus of a number of false and misleading accusation, and he says

he's not the only owner of horses in the area but he does look after

his horses well. Back in Cardiff, and they believe

they are making a difference. There's always going to be horses

in Cardiff. That's - you know, the problem is never going to go away.

What we seem to have at the moment is a more manageable number of

horses in the county. Horse warden Lucy and the council were involved

in 152 horse seizures in Cardiff last year, and for the second time

today, she's going to investigate concerns that horses are on land

where they shouldn't be. This is known as Westfield Park. It backs

on to an estate the other side where there is legitimate grazing

rights there. However, we obviously have an issue with horses on the

park, which we just can't have. Lucy suspects they have been

deliberately placed here, and she plans to take steps to seize the

animals. But just then, for the second time today, someone turns up

and moves them on. Essentially all he's doing is pushing the horses to

the other end of the park. There is no access point over there. Yes, we

have days like this where it is extremely frustrating. However, in

the last couple of years, we have done significant seizures. You know,

the owners of these horses are fully aware of our capabilities

when it comes to picking up large numbers of horses and responding to

a problem. So Cardiff believe they are getting to grips with their

horse problem, but what about areas experiencing problems almost on a

daily basis? A task force has been set up to tackle the huge rise in

calls about horses. Our message is clear to equine owners - be a

responsible owner. If they're on the highway, we'll take them off

you. If we take them off you and you want them back, it will cost

The police and councils' new strategy involves rounding up stray

horses, taking them to a secure compound and charging the horses'

owners �200 to reclaim them, if they can prove ownership. But

already that has run into problems. The stray horses that are rounded

up are brought here to this supposedly secure area, but the

other night under cover of darkness, six of those animals were removed.

Even the police can't get a handle on this. These guys are coming in

the dead of night and taking their horses back. No, I don't think it's

a case the police can't get a handle on this. As I say, our issue

is about public safety, and whenever there is that issue, the

police will go. Solving the big, expensive gypsy horse problem won't

be easy. Just a few days ago we filmed the authorities trying to

round up dozens of horses near Bridgend, but there were so many to

remove that horses continued to roam around the main roads in this

town and people's gardens. While there does seem to be a new

conviction to tackle this, there are calls for more leadership.

believe the Minister in the Welsh Government needs to act on this,

given that animal welfare powers are devolved to the Assembly, so he

has the position to call all stake holders together and say, what is

it you want? Is it you want better coordination? Or is it you want

better powers to make sure you can respond to the concerns of people

about the welfare of animals? Welsh Government says it doesn't

believe there needs to be any changes to the laws, but others

insist the current legislation must be more rigorously enforced.

view is that criminal offences have been committed here, clearly, from

criminal damage to failing to abide by the passport regulations,

possibly microchipping. We believe that no-one should be above the law.

And tonight with the problem now at crisis point, there are fears

drastic measures could follow. you are talking about a thousand

horses suddenly finding themselves without an owner, one solution