A FRANTIC trainer is appealing for help to find a racehorse who has been missing for a week having got loose on a military firing range in Kent after unseating his rider while being galloped on nearby Camber Sands.

Permit-holder Philip Sharp has made local radio and TV appeals in a bid to find Zimbabwe, a winner of six of his 22 races and last successful for Gary Moore in a Fontwell selling hurdle in 2007, but without success.

Sharp is now planning to take the matter up with his solicitor after security staff initially refused him entry tothe Ministry of Defence establishment when the son of Kahyasi, who won three races for his breeder Sheikh Mohammed, including the 2003 Irish Cesarewitch at the Curragh when trained by John Oxx, got onto the 22 square-mile site that contains several unexploded bombs last Friday.

Sharp, accompanied by helpers, subsequently entered the firing range illegally on several occasions before, having objected when warned by the authorities, he was allowed to take part in a three-hour search of the base on Sunday morning.

"I told the security guy they were not going to stop people who love horses searching for a missing horse, even if it means they are going to get blown up," said Sharp, who took his string towork on the beach because of freezing conditions at his stable in Whatlington, East Sussex.

Despite the media publicity, there have been no reported sightings of the ten-year-old gelding, who last ran at Fontwell in November and was expected to have a couple more runs before being retired.

"Zimbabwe unseated his rider and ran off over the dunes into the firing range and he hasn't been seen since," said Sharp.

"I have no idea what happened to him and the yard is just not the same. Everyone is down in the dumps, not knowing whether he is alive or dead.

"We lost the horse because of the complacency of the security people at the base, and the totallack of any system to search the area.

"The army even saw it on CCTV and did nothing. What on earth they expected anyone to do - they were doing nothing, but they wouldn't allow anyone on the base. I am just fuming."

Sharp added: "I will be speaking to lawyers to find out where I stand legally because I have lost a horse, and I'd like an apology.

"I'd like to know that if something like this happens again they will have an emergency Land Rover there and be able to help instead of turning people away."

The Ministry of Defence insisted they had been doing all they could to find the missing racehorse. An MOD spokesperson said yesterday:

"We want to do whatever we can to help find Zimbabwe and have searched our land every day since the horse was
reported missing."

By Staff reporter and agencies