No one likes to see animals suffer, but horses have been tethered since time immemorial and accidents with tethered horses are very rare.

Gipsies love their horses and dogs and chickens, and look after them exceptionally well as far as condition goes. No horses anywhere look better than a tethered roadside cob.

Just because gipsies prefer to live an alternative lifestyle isn’t justification for them to be maligned and harassed by some that can’t bear to see others live.

Live and let live I say. Gipsy-type horses are bred to live outdoors. You won’t see many field shelters on Dartmoor or Exmoor.

Our retired thoroughbred horses have one of the best field shelters money can buy, and many a time, on the most foul of day or night, they will stand on the outside looking in.

Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby.