A FACEBOOK campaign has succeeded in saving around 60 horses from being potentially sold to market.

The post, which was written on the social networking site on Monday evening, attracted more than 100 comments and almost 200 ‘shares’.

It said that around 40 horses were being put up for sale in fields in Whalley Old Road, near Great Harwood.

A number of people registered their interest to the owners in taking in some of the horses and met the asking price of £50 per animal.

It was feared that if they were sold at market the horses could end up being bought by a knackers yard and the animals put down.

It’s believed that around 60 Gypsy horse colts have now been sold.

Leanne Kaut, 36, from Bacup, decided to adopt one of the horses after seeing the appeal on Facebook.

She said: “I saw the appeal on Facebook and I decided to help as much as I could.

“It’s good that the horses have been saved from possible slaughter but this happens every year.

“I understand that 40 were sold on Monday with a further 18 being sold the next day.

“I turned up at the site at 9.30pm on Monday and there were still around 12 people there looking at the horses.”

A RSPCA spokesman said: “On Monday, July 7, the RSPCA received a call from a member of the public who wanted to offer homes to horses being kept on land close to Whalley Old Road.

“We advised the caller to approach the owner with their offer.

“There was no suggestion that the horses had been abandoned or that animal welfare laws had been broken.

“The RSPCA is already dealing with a major horse crisis across England and Wales.

“Last year alone we took 875 horses into our care and we are over-capacity and unable to deal with the soaring demand.”

A spokeswoman for HAPPA, Horses and Ponies Protection Association, said: “The market for low value horses just isn’t there at the moment.

“It would be up to Trading Standards to police any sale.”

Peter Loftus, landlord at the nearby Lord Nelson pub, said: “I heard that there was a lot of talk about on Facebook on Monday night.

“This sort of thing hasn’t happened before and the horses have always seemed to be well looked after.”