DETECTIVES are trying to track down three champion race horses in their efforts to bring a gang of art thieves to justice.

The three horses - Arkle, Red Rum and Desert Orchid - are featured in a popular print stolen last week in a break-in at a Blackrod art gallery.

The print entitled "We Three Kings" was one of eight paintings stolen in the smash-and-grab raid at the Blackrod Galleries, New Street. The same gang are thought to have stolen seven mirrors, worth up to £4,000, in a carbon copy Crime from a Westhoughton interior design centre only two hours earlier.

Detectives are now urging local art collectors and antique dealers to keep a lookout for the missing pictures and mirrors.

A reward under Greater Manchester Police's Crimestoppers scheme is on offer for information leading to the arrest of the thieves.

The gang first struck at the premises of Options Interiors in Church Street, Westhoughton, late last week. They smashed their way through the front door before grabbing the haul of seven mirrors from off the walls. The haul included a golden ivory swept mirror and various cream coloured ornamental mirrors. Detectives believe the gang emptied the shop premises and loaded their haul into a van within 10 minutes, ignoring the sophisticated alarm system.

Hours later in a mirror image crime they forced their way into the Blackrod Galleries grabbing eight pictures, worth £1,000, from the front of the shop. The pictures included the print of We Three Kings and a limited edition print of a Spitfire flying over Tower Bridge by the artist John Young.

Owners of the two businesses fear the mirrors and pictures have been stolen to order.

Anyone who can help is asked to contact Crimestoppers detectives on the free phone number 0800 555 111 or Westhoughton CID.

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