A HORSE owner has called on drivers on rural roads around Oswestry to slow down around and give space to horses being exercised after a terrible near miss.

Catherine Evans, 39 and from Morda, was walking her ponies on Easter Monday, including two-year-old Lilly when a car zoomed past without care or concern for the animals and their owners.

The incident caused Lilly to rear up and try to escape, nearly injuring Cath who says that 12 months of working with Lilly, who was rescued from the wild, has been ruined by the driver.

She said that while police have been sympathetic to her over the incident, the lack of a number plate means they cannot pursue a prosecution, lading to Cath’s call for better awareness in a rural area.

She said: “On Monday, at around 6pm, my daughter and I were walking our ponies back to our field along the Trefonen Road, near the Woodhill turning.

“The weather had turned nasty, making driving conditions wet when a vehicle came towards us making no attempt to slow down or even wait for us to pull into the layby which was only a few metres away. 

“As the driver came alongside us, with hardly any room between us, they braked causing surface water to spray and make noise, my pony got so frightened that she scrambled up the verge embankment, narrowly missing me in the process.

“The driver made no attempt to stop to ask if we were ok even though I waved and shouted.

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“It was outrageously bad driving and they could have hurt us all, including themselves.

“The animals are 500kg and 300kg – if they had gone through their windscreen, then they would have been really badly hurt at least.

“It really made me angry – even more so because there was a layby that we tried to get to.”

Cath said this was not the first time she had an incident that scared her animals, and wants people to remember to give horses and ponies two-metre space and slow down to no more than 10mph.

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She added: “We had an incident recently where my mum was walking Lilly out and a drive in a 4x4 was clearly going over the speed limit.

“It took them so long to slow down and Lilly escaped.

“But we couldn’t do anything about that as we didn’t have any evidence.

“We can’t exercise the ponies without going out on the roads – I wouldn’t if I could, trust me, but I don’t have a livery yard.

“There’s just no need for it – it was senseless driving.”

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