A Shropshire woman today made a desperate plea for help in tracing her beloved horse nearly three years after he was taken by thieves.

Lynn Walker said she had never got over the loss of Toby, a distinctive brown, white and black gipsy cob horse, since it was stolen from a field along Hem Lane and Halesfield 1 in Telford in June 2006.

Thieves cut through a fence and took the valuable 16-year-old horse. Mrs Walker believes the horse was stolen to order as five other horses in the same field were left behind.

“Even though he was stolen three years ago, we are still looking for him. We have had him on television twice since then and he’s on the internet and Horse Watch members are looking out for him. I’ve not given up hope. I will never stop looking for him,” she said.

The devastated horse lover said they had also put Toby on an American website because at the time of his theft there was a holding field in Bristol for stolen horses before they were shipped to America.

Mrs Walker said she was not being unrealistic in her search three years on as stories on the internet included ones which saw owners be reunited with their horses up to 11 years later.

“Somebody may have bought him at some point not knowing he was stolen. He is microchipped so I can prove that he is mine. I just need to make people aware of his significance and look out for him,” she added.

The thieves cut through the fence to reach Toby, who had previously won competitions before suffering arthritis.

“I will never give up looking for him. I think he was pinched from the field, kept where nobody would see him and then sold on. Whoever may have him now will have hopefully looked after him properly because he was an older horse but they may have just bought him unaware of where he was stolen from.” Police can be contacted on 0300 333 3000.