International equine charity World Horse Welfare has unveiled a support service entitled Help for Horse Owners with the aim of reaching people before their ability to cope compromises the care they can provide to their horses and themselves.
The scheme comes off the back of a busy year for the charity which saw a marked increase in welfare incidents involving large groups of horses.
This year, as of November, World Horse Welfare had been involved in 157 situations where the owner had more than 10 horses deemed to be at risk. This is a 44% increase on the 109 cases they dealt with in 2023.
From 2023 to 2024 the number of situations the charity responded to which involved owners with more than 50 horses had nearly doubled.
‘Climatic challenges’
“I believe we are seeing more horse owners unable to cope through not being able to adapt quickly enough to the climatic challenges such as warmer, wetter winters,” said Claire Gordon, World Horse Welfare chief field officer.
“These are having a huge impact on their land which puts strain on their own management practices and on top of this everything has become so much more expensive.
“It becomes harder to safely navigate moving around your horses to provide routine care or even spot the issues in the first place. So, we see unchecked breeding and youngstock going unhandled. On top of this, paid help is hard to keep as the working conditions are too unpleasant and so situations spiral further until we are called.”
Strain on resources
The rescue of large groups of horses puts huge pressure on the charity’s rehoming centres and field officer team. It has also meant the charity has had to spend money on equipment such as trailers and large horse safe panels to help with these cases.
“It is often on these large-scale rescues that we find not only the horses living in poor environments but also too, their struggling owners,” continued Claire.
“We have lost count of the number of people we have helped when they have nowhere else to turn and are often at their lowest ebb. They usually are so grateful and report back that they wished they had known sooner that we existed and that they would have asked for help earlier if only they had known.”
The scheme offers skilled guidance, advice and support for horse owners who are struggling to care for their horses. For more information click here.
Main image (c) World Horse Welfare.
