Preliminary findings on one of Beth Hoskins’ Morgan horses that died while in foster care of the SPCA Serving Erie County show that the mare died of a broken neck Jan. 3.

The final report for the necropsy performed Jan. 5 at Cornell University on the 21-year-old horse, Ariel, to determine its cause of death is not expected until sometime this week, at the earliest.

Hoskins, who faces a nonjury criminal trial on 74 animal-cruelty counts stemming from a March 2010 raid by the SPCA at her Aurora farm, is upset by the horse’s death and has called it “very, very heartbreaking.”

Her attorney, Thomas J. Eoannou, noted Saturday that the horse was out in freezing cold weather and crashed through a fence, likely in an attempt to get back into the barn.

A state judge had allowed Hoskins and a team of private investigators to check the foster farm where Ariel had been living, and they confirmed two breaks in the fence, indicating Ariel may have been trying to get out of the corral and then crashed into the other fence and died, Eoannou said.

“That’s awful,” he added.

SPCA spokeswoman Gina Browning also confirmed that Cornell indicated the horse died of a broken neck in its initial findings. The SPCA also noted that Ariel had run head-first twice into a fence around the pasture at the stable where she was living. The SPCA said that doctors have noted possible brain lesions in the horse that could potentially lead to abnormal behavior.

“The question is: Could the brain lesions lead to that erratic behavior? Was her running around outside considered erratic behavior?” Browning said. “Even if there are brain lesions and they can lead to erratic behavior, the question is was that erratic behavior for Ariel? Cornell was going to look further into the brain lesions and see if there was a link.”

krobinson@buffnews.comnull