Hercules is dead. Can he be resurrected?

The shire horse lies on its side, still. There are no signs of life. He’s sprawled out on a turquoise length of netting, with a dull yellow piece of canvas covering his upper body and head, tied together with thin pieces of rope. His legs, now broken, poke out of the back.

Here lies Hercules, a majestic beast of 32(ish) years. Once, he stood proud on his copper haunches outside the old Tetley’s brewery. Now, he’s hidden away at the back of a building site car park.

The alarm was first raised on June 21 by a user in the Leeds Subreddit. With tongue firmly in cheek, the post read: “MISSING: One Copper Horse (Last Seen Standing Still)”. The subject, it emerged, was the Tetley’s shire horse statue, which had sat in a completed section of the ongoing Aire Park development, watched over by its forefather, The Tetley (the former headquarters of Joshua Tetley & Son).

A photo was shared of the vacated plinth. Soon, rumours began to circulate — vandals had come in the night, it was said.

Where was Hercules? What had happened? And will he ever recover from his ordeal? To get answers, I needed to talk to Paul Macey.

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