Rescue and Care for Maltreated Horse by HORFH
Recently two members of staff went on a trip to visit an equine rescue centre The Home Of Rest For Horses as Animal Friends had recently donated £1,000 to the rescue centre. During our visit, we were allowed to look at the equine residents currently at the home.
One of the horses we met was a lovely horse called Star; a five year old 13hh black gelding; and whilst there we noticed that the rescue were currently looking to re-home this lovely horse. We were pleased to hear that as of last week Star now has a loving home; his new place of residence will be at Oakwood youth challenge and is going to be helping young disabled children. Star was a perfect candidate to join the youth challenge due to his amazingly calm and affectionate temperament - whilst working with children he will help provide a physical, emotional and spiritual support and the children will be able to ride star and gain riding tuition.
The Home Of Rest For Horses originally rescued Star from the well-known Spindles Farm. Star was found in a terrible condition; he was only 8 months old at the time and he was the youngest of all the horses rescued from Spindles farm. When the HORFH rescued Star he was very emaciated and suffering from salmonella poisoning.
Spindles farm was famous when it was feature in the news in 2008 due to a significant cruelty cases when a horse dealer, Mr James Gray (otherwise known as Jamie Gray), was charged on account of substantial horse cruelty. Dozens of horses were rescued from Spindles Farm which is located in Hyde Heath near Amersham, Buckinghamshire; however some horses unfortunately were not so lucky, as many horses had been left to starve to death.
Mr James Gray had been reported by members of public and on the 4th January 2008 RSPCA officers inspected the farm to find approximately 125 horses ponies and donkeys all in a terrible state and for a long period of time had been neglected, and amongst the chaos of all the horses 32 equines had unfortunately been found dead on arrival.
Mr Gray finally faced a court trial in June 2009, the judge ruled that he should be sentenced to six months imprisonment; he was fined £400,000 and was banned from keeping horses for the rest of his life. Mr Gray’s son Mr James Junior was also convicted of the same charges as his father however the judge ruled that he should be sentenced to an 18 month supervision order and a ten year ban on keeping horses, Mr Gays wife Julie and two daughter Jodie and Cordelia were also found guilty of two charges for failing to protect the animals and also sentenced to 10 year bans on keeping horses and community service.
This large scale rescue operation enlisted the help of many horse rescue centres as well as the HORFH, Redwings and World Horse Welfare, who assisted in removing the horses which took a total of 8 days to complete. In total 115 horses were removed and the other remaining equines were put to sleep on site due to their appalling conditions. Despite the loss of these horses, we can only be thankful for the timely intervention of the RSPCA and the concerned public who alerted the RSPCA to the maltreated horses, otherwise many more may have been lost.
