Last Friday and Saturday Brownbread Horse Rescue in Ashburnham received frantic phone calls regarding 7 horses and ponies that were being kept in appalling conditions near Ashdown Forest.

The group consisted of 5 stallions and two mares. Due to the fact that they were stallions it was not possible to carry more than one at a time in the rescue trailer. The rescue therefore involved two vehicles making several trips, each nearly an hours journey each way. By midnight on Saturday the exhausted rescuers had to call it a day with only one stallion left and this was collected early next day.

At least two of the stallions were found to be in an emaciated condition and all seven will need basic treatment to return them full health.

The Centre now has to find money to pay both for the basic worming treatment but also for the operations that are required, estimated veterinary costs about £1,000. While the Brownbread Centre is run mainly by volunteers the influx of 7 horses at one time has put a great strain on feed costs and stabling.

Head of Welfare, Dinty Steains said, "This was an emergency situation and we always respond instantly to such cases. In this case we had an elderly lady owner who was having an operation imminently."

The Charity Trustee, Tony Smith, said, "Generally the Charity is full up and we have a waiting list but this was an exception. Two of the animals were very, very poor and all were being kept in stables on wet, deep muck and never let out, never mucked out and underfed."

Dinty added that on a scale of zero to 10 of full body weight one of the stallions is zero and another is 1. Dinty cointinued, "We have a big Open Day on the 12th September but we are desperate for funds now to help us cope with this massive rescue situation. We need visitors to come here now and see these animals. perhaps sponsor one of them but at least to make a substantial donation towards their keep.

this is the hovel that we spent our days in, as you can see it is dirty and damp. We were left in here all day and night we never came out for months and then we were forgotten about.


when a horse or a pony comes in to the rescue center it is scored on full body weight of 0 to 10, the horse on the left is scored 1 out of 10, and the pony on your right is scored 0 out of 10. We are not sure what the out come for these two animals is going to be yet, as its early days and the might have internal damage due loss of body weight.

These are some of the other ponies rescued, some are worse than others regarding there condition, but they were all neglected and shut away in there cells.