A horse owner has hit out at “idiots” who let eight horses out of a field, prompting a three-hour rescue operation when one tumbled several feet into a hole.
Four-year-old cob mare Dolly was initially feared stolen after going missing from a field at Kinfauns in the early hours of Sunday morning.
She was found eight hours later in the narrow entrance of a wartime shelter 10 feet below the ground.
It took owner Hannah Pedgrift three and a half hours to coax the petrified pony into walking backwards along the passage and up some stairs to freedom.
The 18-year-old said police alerted her to the horses’ escape at 4.30am and that she suspected the gate had been left open deliberately.
“I think it was deliberate someone’s opened it on purpose,” she said. “They are idiots but I don’t know if they were doing it for a joke or if they intended to hurt someone.
“It makes me angry that they haven’t thought of the consequences. We are so lucky that Dolly is still alive and is out safe it could have been a lot worse.
“Because the gate was open and ropes had been taken I thought she’d been stolen and I was panicking. I was more worried about her and how she would be.
“I was really relieved when we found her but when I saw her I was worried about getting her out safely and alive.”
Hannah said her dad, Andy, spent several hours searching for the pony before reporting her as missing.
She said: “We got a call from the police to say the horses were on the main road. My dad went down and the gate was open. By this time the horses were back in and the police said they had seven but my dad said there should be eight.
“Dad started driving about but there was no sight or sound of her, but at about 1pm a neighbour called and said they had found her in their war shelter.
“She’d fallen in and I think she got a fright and ran forward into the door, which was at right angles, and couldn’t get out.”
After breaking down part of the wall of the passageway alongside Dolly, Hannah enlisted friends Susan Ormand, Dave Anderson and Emma Laing to free the horse.
Hannah said: “We put a lunge line round her back legs, her bum and hips and put a bit of pressure on and I put pressure on her head. She had to walk backwards up the steps because we couldn’t get her facing forward she sat on her bum and had a rest before she went up.”
Hannah added that Dolly is none the worse for her ordeal.