Teen's pet horses slaughtered in drive-by shooting

A teenage girl's two pet horses have been slaughtered during a night-time drive-by shooting in a remote South Island gorge that has baffled police. Buller Gorge bushman Stephen McGrath was driving Clydesdales past a farm paddock where his 16-year-old daughter Rimu kept her beloved mare Dolly and its young foal, Rice. He became worried when they didn't come running up to the roadside fence "like they usually do", and sent a farmhand into the paddock to check for them. "She screamed her head off," Mr McGrath said relaying when the worker found two carcasses lying in long grass 30m from the road. They had been shot through the head and were surrounded by pools of blood. "The mare had been shot through the eye with a clean shot from a high calibre rifle," the experienced horseman said. "The foal was shot in the head, but it wasn't a clean shot. It ran around the paddock for some considerable distance before it died. There was blood everywhere."

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