A race horse owner yesterday admitted animal cruelty charges after one of her horses was found dead in barbed wire.

Several of Mary O’Leary’s 81 horses were left emaciated, anaemic, infested with parasites, with open wounds and grazing in fields strewn with barbed wire, rusty metal, discarded plastic and broken bottles.

Forty-five horses were rescued by the RSPCA and Wrexham Council in December, the town’s magistrates’ court was told.
O’Leary, 72, was described as a “hoarder” who could not cope with her horses but continued to get new ones and keep them on farmland in Penycae, Wrexham.

When the dead horse was found on December 3 she was issued with an improvement notice. Days later a vet visited the horses, suffering from worms, and O’Leary was told they would be removed.

Days later RSPCA officers were thwarted because O’Leary had moved them.

John Wyn-Williams, prosecuting, said the frail pensioner stayed up until 4am hiding the horses in neighbours’ fields.

In a case that has cost more than £107,861, O’Leary, of Abbey Road, Llangollen, admitted eight counts of causing unnecessary suffering to horses, two of failing to ensure horses’ needs and one of obstructing an investigation.

David Martin, a vet who examined the horses, said: “It is my professional opinion there has been a complete failure to provide these horses with the most basic standard of animal husbandry.”

It is not the first time O’Leary has been prosecuted. She pleaded guilty to neglecting horses in 1990 before magistrates in Oswestry, Shropshire.

Mr Wyn-Williams said: “It is more than apparent she cannot look after horses properly and we will apply that she should be disqualified in the future.”

He added she showed “a total lack of co-operation with the investigation”.

Euros Jones, defending, said horses were the defendant’s life and livelihood.

Her horses had won races at Wolverhampton and Bangor on Dee, he said.

“She was born into horses, worked with them throughout her life, looked after them, trained them and raced them,” he said. “She hasn’t intentionally been cruel to any animal. She had too many horses and couldn’t cope. She seems to be somewhat of a hoarder – she will take horses in all the time for other people.”

District Judge Andrew Shaw adjourned for pre-sentencing reports. He told O’Leary he was keeping all options open, including custody. O’Leary will be sentenced at Mold on July 10.