South Yorkshire Police officers left "heartbroken" after the sudden death of long serving horse Billy due to retire next year

PH Brinsworth, known as Billy, joined the force at five-years-old back in 2009 and has served with the mounted section ever since.

He had been working on police assignments just two days before he was taken ill but he was put to sleep on Monday after a short illness.

When mounted officers arrived at the stables at Ring Farm in Barnsley on Thursday last week (December 8) the 19-year-old horse was clearly uncomfortable and the emergency vet was called but officers were advised to take him to Rainbow Vets, an equine hospital in Malton.

It was found that he had an impactation in his small intestine which was removed and everything else looked normal. It was later discovered he had a blockage in his colon and he was operated on and monitored throughout last weekend but when vets tried to get Billy to eat he would reflux as food was getting stuck in his intestine. A scan also revealed that he had pneumonia.

By Monday vets were concerned he wasn’t recovering as expected and wanted to operate again. While he was on the operating table the vets found that three feet of his small intestines had lost blood supply and weren’t working and made a phone call to his rider, Sgt Collette Pitcher.

In a tearful interview with The Yorkshire Post she said: “They could have removed the intestine and re-attached it but there was a chance it could happen again. We should have been retiring him next year. The kindest thing is to let him go. I made the call, it was my decision. It was a heart-breaking decision to make. It is awful because he was my horse but it was in his best interests. I just wish I had been there when he went under the anaesthetic.

"It came out of the blue, there was no indication whatsoever, he had been working all week.”

Just days before Billy had worked at a ceremonial funeral and at the end of last month he had narrowly missed out on being crowned Animal of The Year.

He was known as the reliable horse that younger police horses were paired with to learn from and had done most forms of policing from school visits, to football matches to crowd control at The London Olympics in 2012.

In his time Billy has even met David Beckham and more recently attended the G8 Summit in Glasgow. Even flares being thrown at football matches didn’t spook him.

Mounted officers at Ring Farm say you could put any rider on him, put him anywhere and in any situation – which is why he was allocated to Sgt Pitcher when she joined the department in October last year.

However, she recalls they didn’t get off to the best start but once they became work partners – there was also some fun along the way.

Sgt Pitcher said: “On week three of my 16 week riding course we did some jumping and he decided he would buck and I exited left and hit a fence. They made me go back on him and I am glad they did because after that I wanted him.

"There was something about him. He was so reliable - unless there was a white plastic bag. It was his achilles, for some horses it might be birds but when it was windy he had eyes everywhere. He was a cheeky chappie – but he wasn’t an arm chair.

"One of the things Billy was quite proud of was that there are only two people in the whole department that he hasn’t thrown. He has had us all on the floor at some point.”

She recalls an exercise outing where his thoroughbred history came into play and Sgt Pitcher was again expecting to be on the floor.

She said: “We had been out on the trails and about to go back and a colleague I was with, on PH Stocksbridge, said ‘let’s canter up the hill’.

"Billy did not like being behind and overtook, I held on for dear life shouting ‘whoa Billy’ thinking any moment and I am off. I could see a puddle and I prepared for him to jump the puddle – and he just stopped. When my colleague caught me up I had a massive smile on my face.”

After Billy’s death on Monday, Sgt Pitcher drove to Malton to see him one last time before he will be cremated and brought home his mane and tail and his shoes.

A plaque will be made with one of his shoes, name and details on and the same will be done for PH Hoober who died just over a year ago. The force farrier has made a cube that features shoes from other horses at Ring Farm and in Spring a memorial garden will be made where the cube will be planted along with where they can remember Billy and the other horses.