Horse trainer Howard Johnson offers reward for stolen gates

Oct 21 2009 by Sophie Doughty, The Journal

ONE of Britain’s leading racehorse trainers last night offered a reward to help catch thieves who could have put hundreds of thousands of pounds of livestock at risk.

Howard Johnson, was left stunned when he awoke on Saturday to find that six huge galvanised steel gates had been sawn off their hinges and removed from his land overnight.

The 12ft gates are worth up to £1,000 each on their own.

But the County Durham trainer, who rose to national prominence when computer millionaire Graham Wylie – one of jump racing’s biggest owners – brought his string of racehorses to his Crook yard said consequences of the thieves’ actions could have been far worse.

Mr Johnson discovered the gates, at his White Lea farm, in Roddymoor, were missing just in time before turning one of his yard’s prize horses out into the paddock. And the 56-year-old said it was sheer luck that around 200 sheep grazing in one of the fields did not wander off on to the road and cause an accident.

The news of the thefts is a double blow for the trainer after Wylie’s horse Inglis Drever, who became the first horse to win the Cheltenham World Hurdle three times, passed away on Friday.

Mr Johnson is now offering a £250 reward and a bottle of Champagne to anyone that gives information leading to the conviction of whoever stole his gates.

“It is just ridiculous that someone would do this,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse though.

“They took one off a horse paddock where we turn the horses out after they have been exercised, but if they had taken them off the field where the horses were they could have got away.

“Luckily enough it’s just a turn-out paddock and I noticed on the morning. I just thought ‘Where’s that gate gone?’ and I went a bit further and noticed another and another.”

“Luckily enough there were 200 sheep in one field and they had gone into the top field. We realised in time to make them secure, but we were very lucky because if they had got on the road somebody could have been killed.”