Now Tesco are hunting them down...

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse for Tesco...

A horse was put down in a village street after its back legs were broken when it was hit by a Tesco delivery van.

There may be no such thing as bad publicity, but I'd say this is a fairly close thing. After all, it's one thing to have your horse delivered in anonymous lumps round the back but quite another to go out and mow it down in person.

And, in any case, the horse in question belonging to the Warwickshire Hunt, the Tesco driver didn't get a chance to sweep his ill-gotten roadkill into the van:

“Fortunately hunt staff were less than half a mile away and were down there to deal with it as quickly as 
possible."

...which, presumably, involved swift euthanasia followed by nature's own recycling process via a pack of hounds in the time-honoured tradition.

It's a distressing story all round - particularly for the rider and the driver (both apparently unhurt, I am happy to say) - but spare a thought for Tesco's PR department, who must be living on their nerves by now.

After all, no amount of proposed DNA testing, traceability of stock and grovelling full-page apologies in the national press can make up for this gift of a story for bloggers and tweeters everywhere.