Rider rescues motorway “stray”
A border terrier who went missing after straying on to the M1 was returned to its owner thanks to the networking skills of riders and organisers at a nearby BSJA competition.
David Cave, whose dog went missing near junction 22 last week, explains: “I put up notices the same day and asked people in the area whether they’d seen the dog.
“Some motorway litter pickers told me the terrier had been picked up by a large, powder-blue horse lorry. Apparently they had noticed because the motorway traffic had been brought to a complete standstill.”
On a hunch, David approached John and Pam Duffield’s nearby Markfield Equestrian Centre, which had held an affiliated fixture the same day as the dog went missing.
“I wondered if the lorry might belong to one of the riders,” he says. “The BSJA and the organisers gave me numbers for 20 or 30 of them. By the time we’d phoned the first dozen, all the others knew because they had all been phoning round their friends and everyone was talking about it.”
The lorry was eventually traced to show jumping rider Alex Thompson, who competes to grade A level. He had picked the dog off the motorway to save it from getting run over and taken it home to Cotgrave, Notts.
“The co-operation we got from the BSJA, the organisers and the riders was absolutely incredible,” says David. “And Alex even drove the dog back the 30 miles to bring him home to me.”
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
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
