A HORSE owner has asked for the public’s help in tracking down her animal after it was stolen from its stable at night.

Libby Spearman, 18, said one-year-old gypsy cob Tiggy was snatched from his home near Southend Airport, in Aviation Way, on Wednesday night.

She said: “He was stolen out of his stable. I was just so shocked. It’s something that has never happened before.

“We went up there in the morning to find that he had gone. They ripped the bolt off the stable door and took him. He was probably scared to death.

“He’s nervous as it is. He only likes having us around him so we would have been terrified.

“There is an old caravan up there and graffiti was sprayed all over it saying ‘Ha, Ha, Ha’.

“We don’t know who it was.”

Tiggy disappeared at some point after 6pm on Wednesday, May 18, but before 6am the following day.

The black and white horse suffers from ballerina syndrome, which means he walks on tip-toes on his hind legs.

Miss Spearman, from Rochford, said: “It will cause him problems later in life. When he gets older he will need medication for it.

“He doesn’t really have any other identifying features except he’s black and white, but mostly white. He also has lice at the moment.

“At the moment he’s no good to anybody.”

The barmaid has put an appeal on Facebook in an effort to make the horse “too hot to handle”.

So far it has had more than 2,000 shares.

She said: “If people see him then they may be able to help.

“The thieves would have had to have a horse trailer. But where we are at Southend Airport lorries are in and out all the time.

“Their security finishes at 6pm and doesn’t come back until the morning.

“We are hoping to get some CCTV but we haven’t had a phone call back yet.”

Miss Spearman said she is now concerned for the safety of the three mares and two foals she also keeps at the stables.

She said: “We have grown up with horses as we come from a travelling background and have always had them.

“It is very concerning.

“You hear of horses being stolen in other places but not around here.”

Anyone with information can call Essex Police on 101.