Saddle theft Lincolnshire/Market Rasen

[cariad]

Nice start to the morning to find various items of tack nicked from my garage. I feel sure it was targeted as we have had a couple of people come to the house with clipboards or parcels and the like asking for addresses which always makes me suspicious. I am in Lincolnshire, near Market Rasen and the missing tack is a large dark brown leather Western saddle, a battered large old Champion and Wilton side saddle, very much in need of repair, a very small tan leather saddle which might be an old fashioned racing saddle, I was never sure, and a couple of old black synthetic saddles. There were also some bridles with distinctive old fashioned red plaited reins and faded brown plaited reins, one with a Myler bit. None of them are worth any money as tack - the side saddle is unusable, for instance, but could be a decorative object. Obviously I don't hold out any hope of finding them, but thought I'd post on the off chance and also as a warning for anyone in my area, particularly after all the Lincs rug theft posts. Just watch out for men in vans complete with parcels asking for addresses.

 

[ISHmad]

Would be worth reporting to Horsewatch in your area, so they can put a Ringmaster alert out. Scum, they really are people who do things like this.

 

[cariad]

Good idea. How do I know where they are? Google Horsewatch? Have also been down to the local shop and they tell me they've had several customers come in and comment on a large white van with apparently tinted or blacked out windows and possibly dark blue back doors driving round and round. The village put a skip outside the village hall yesterday for people to put "difficult" rubbish in and the van was there taking things out of the skip and putting it in the back. Well, the people in the van, the van itself hadn't suddenly grown arms and legs of course!

 

[FlipFlop5]

How awful, will keep a look out for the van/ any dodgy people as really close to you ( village near Louth!) ,have you checked with any saddlers to see if they've been sold on to them?

 

[cariad]

It's very strange actually, but no-one seems to be able to say where all this tack goes once it's nicked. There are all sorts of theories -it's put in containers and shipped to Ireland or Europe; car boot sales; auctions etc; sold in pubs for a tenner, that sort of thing. But no-one has ever really been able to give me an answer.

Having thought about it and spoken with the people in the shop, I am coming round to the idea that it may not have been targeted, but just opportunist and the fact that it was saddles that were nicked was just coincidence as they were the nearest things to the door and quick to pile into a van or whatever. So I don't really know whether you can call it a tack theft as such. It was an absolutely foul day yesterday, dark, lashing rain and no-one going past was going to be much concentrating on strange vans, so a good day to nick things.

I will ask around the local saddlers and auction rooms, but you never really see volumes of tack turning up there and I can't imagine these people can be bothered carefully taking one saddle here and another there so as not to arouse suspicion. It's just not worth it. I rather suspect they may have come from out of area, even if only 50 or so miles away and the stuff is long gone.