FIREFIGHTERS staged a dramatic rescue of a horse from the River Aire in Bingley.

Teabag, a 22-year-old horse, was rescued after being stuck in mud in the river close to the Brown Cow pub.

The Connemara Cross horse had wandered off from her field at Riverside Riding for the Disabled, Ravenroyd Farm, Riverside, Bingley, to the adjacent river.

She then got stuck in the mud in the river after eating her way through some of the grass at the bankside.

Five firefighters from Cleckheaton station's technical rescue unit were called to the incident at about 8.35am yesterday.

Crews used a pulley system under her front and back legs to lift the animal from the river, before re-uniting it with its owner Helen Simpson. A total of 16 people took part in the three-hour rescue.

A vet also sedated Teabag to carry out the work.

But she was unharmed by the ordeal and only suffered cuts and bruises to her legs.

Miss Simpson, 41, said: "I'm very grateful to the rescue team.

"I was just relieved that nothing untoward happened. The stress of it could have caused her some problems.

"I joined in the rescue myself. She was up to her legs in mud. They tried to coax her up but the bank was quite steep.

"It was not my idea of fun on a Monday morning.

"Nothing like this has happened to her before. Sometime early yesterday morning she took a wander to the offshoot of the river and got stuck.

"Once she was rescued, she got up and carried on eating as if nothing had happened.

"Teabag was in the stable after it happened munching on a hay net. She was acting like nothing had happened to her.

"She is not going back in that field now. She will be based in the same stables but will be in a part of the field that is fenced up that will have sensors.

"I have known her since she was nine months old and owned her since she was 18 months old.

"She is half a tonne in weight so she was difficult for everybody to move."

Watch commander Dan Gledhill, of Cleckheaton Fire Station and team leader of the rescue unit who helped co-ordinate the rescue, said: "We have done about ten rescues of horses before.

"It was a tough job to do. It was not an easy process.

"It happened near the field where the horse was kept. The We got the horse out of the water and put it under slight sedation to calm it down.

"It was hard for the horse and the rescue team to move in the mud."