A dozen phone calls a day, two horses tied up at the side of a busy road, muddy and being rained on.

2014 saw many call-outs relating to horses that were tethered at the roadside and fly-grazing. Penny Ha’Penny visited the horses every night to feed and provide water while talking to the owners to try and convince them to hand the horses over. The problem being Penny Ha’Penny Horse & Pony Rescue couldn’t just steal the horses from the road, as sad as they looked, tempting as it was and despite many demands from the public. What about the other horses in the rescue if we were caught stealing? Tethering a horse is not illegal as at the time neither was fly-grazing. A change in the law around the same time meant the council were able to have the horses seized by bailiffs, they were gone from the road and the public happy. Out of sight out of mind. Nobody knew what had come of them, nobody cared. 

Penny Ha’Penny kept track of the horses and in touch with the Council and the Bailiffs. When it became obvious the horse’s fate was sealed, the owner refusing to pay the fine for their return and no homes for them to go to. Penny Ha’Penny stepped in to save them from certain death. The horses were delivered to the rescue and now in better condition than they had been but with severe behavioural issues. We worked with the two of them, now called Dolly and Cherry, to teach them good manners. Give them confidence in people and trust that food was always coming. Many months of rehabilitation and we had two friendly horses ready for re-homing. Cherry was lucky enough to be chosen by a local Malvern woman who already has a horse from Penny Ha’Penny. The new owner has continued working with Cherry and re-schooled her using natural horsemanship to allow her to ride her. They could regularly be seen strolling on the Malvern Hills. 

A lot of the work Penny Ha’Penny Horse & Pony Rescue do is behind the scenes, quietly working for the best result we can for individual horses. We don’t scream and shout about every case as our energies are focussed on the animals. 

The attached pictures show Cherry at the side of the road before we got involved, the day they arrived and more recently in her amazing new home.

Unfortunately, Cherry was returned to the rescue during Lockdown V.1. The loan homes circumstances changed meaning she could no longer care full time for Cherry but does still visit on a regular basis.