Shane Ryan Casey, aged 18, denied cruelty to animal charges at Limerick District Court.

Judge Eugene O’Kelly said Ryan Casey was “not fit to have anything to do with horses”, and any horse licence application made by him in the future “should be strenuously resisted”.

This evidence was given at a previous sitting of the court where Ryan Casey was given 240 hours of community service.

The court heard yesterday that Ryan Casey had not done this community service. Judge O’Kelly then imposed the six-month jail term.

Ryan Casey, from Clonlong halting site, was seen by members of the public and later the gardaí, flogging the sulky horse while it lay exhausted on the side of a main road in Limerick City.

Garda Rory O’Grady, who has worked with horses since a young age, said he arrived at Childers Road on June 22 last year, where he saw Ryan Casey beating the collapsed horse with the sulky reins.

Garda O’Grady said he was responding to calls from members of the public who said there was an overturned sulky and collapsed horse on the side of the road.

There were a number of children, some as young as six, looking at the “torturous beating” inflicted on the horse.

Garda O’Grady said the horse was exhausted and visibly terrified. It was bleeding from both sides of its mouth where the bit was too tight; it had cuts to its legs and a lame back leg. He produced photographs taken of the horse.

There were two young children at the scene and while it was unclear who was riding the sulky, he said it seemed Ryan Casey came to their assistance after the horse collapsed.

“Some of the cruelty may have happened prior to Ryan Casey’s arrival,” said the garda.

The owner of the horse could not be determined and it had to be destroyed.

Defence solicitor Sarah Ryan said her client denied the charges of beating the animal and he maintained he was only trying to get the horse off the road and back standing.