AN award-winning equestrian who was banned from keeping animals for ten years after she admitted neglecting a horse, has had her sentence halved on appeal.

Joanne Eleanor, 30, who appeared on the Horse of the Year Show as a youngster, had admitted failing to provide necessary care to the horse.

Teesside Magistrates Court heard that the RSPCA found the chestnut mare undernourished and neglected.

At the time, John Nixon, for Eleanor, said the neglect had "mirrored the tremendous difficulties she was having with the breakdown of her marriage and her depression".

Magistrates issued a ten-year ban, preventing Eleanor, of Red House Farm, Moorhouse Estate, Stockton, from keeping animals. They ordered the horse to be confiscation and placed in RSPCA care. She was also given a two-month jail sentence, suspended for one year.

Yesterday at Teesside Crown Court, Eleanor won an appeal against her sentence, which was reduced by Judge George Moorhouse to a five year ban and one month suspended prison sentence.

Judge Moorhouse said: "We think it as not deliberate cruelty but it was grossly negligent on your part.