Gypsy cob dealer jailed for multiple welfare and cruelty offences
A Welsh horse dealer has been jailed for eight months and banned from keeping horses for five years after being found guilty of 57 welfare and cruelty charges.
Tom Price, 48, from Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan, is believed to own up to 2,500 gypsy cobs.
He was jailed for six months at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court today (5 July) for causing unnecessary suffering to 18 horses. The prosecution was brought by the RSPCA.
The sentence will run concurrently with an eight-month sentence he received for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). He was served with the ASBO last November, for repeatedly fly-grazing his horses in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Price’s 26-year-old son, Thomas Hope Price, pleaded guilty to the offences before the trial. He was jailed for 23 weeks.
District Judge Bodfan Jenkins ordered the pair to pay £43,000 each in court costs.
He said the men had been involved in a large and wealthy operation breeding gypsy cobs and the conditions the animals were kept in “beggared belief”.
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
The five-year ban for keeping horses was suspended for six months to give the Prices time to sell or dispose of their stock.
Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now
Flora Watkins spent several years working for BBC News before moving into print, first as a staffer at Horse & Hound, before going freelance.