TWO men have been arrested after a horse was killed and dumped in a garden overnight.

North Yorkshire Police and the RSPCA were called to the property in The Green, Raskelf, near Easingwold, at about 9.30pm last night, after a woman reported the horse she leased had been shot and killed.

It is understood the horse had been killed and driven to the property in the bucket of a JCB before being dumped in the garden, and local reports suggest it was over a small unpaid debt.

Karen Colman, an RSPCA inspector, said the arrests had been made at the GG Centre in Raskelf. She said the horse had been killed illegally.

Beckie Warner, the woman who leased the horse, said: "I am absolutely devastated. I still cannot think straight. It's like being in a trance. I cannot get my head round what has happened, that someone could do something so evil. It's unreal - it's like something you would read about."

She said the horse, Kit, was a seven-year-old thoroughbred and former racehorse.

She said she had heard a JCB in the street last night and, having just put her seven-year-old and four-year-old daughters to bed, went to put the rubbish out when she saw a shape in the garden.

Donna Spencer, from Acomb, was at the scene last night, and said: "The lady only had the horse on loan, she didn't own it."

Police have today confirmed a 36-year-old man from Raskelf and a 53-year-old man from York were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage at about 12.30am today, and currently remain in police custody.

Raskelf residents told of their shock today. Dennis Jarvis, who lives on The Green, said he saw police arriving around 11.15pm yesterday.

He said: "There must have been about 12 police vehicles coming and going, vans, cars and officers in plain clothes. I looked down from my window and could see a big shape under some sheets, and I thought it might be a human body."

He said the resident whose garden the horse had been put in had only lived there for a few weeks.