16/11/2025
https://gofund.me/58d897e45
We are so incredibly close to reaching our goal. Any donation, no matter how big or small, is truly appreciated. Weâre humbled and grateful to have such an amazing community of supporters. Thank you all so much.
Alfie - Sorry for the long post, but please could everyone take the time to read to the end!
As many of you are aware, Alfie, our gorgeous grey Irish draught was gifted to us back in June as his owner had been dealing with a lot of personal family trauma and was struggling to take proper care of him and her other old pony. She reached out to us to see if we could help!
We visited Alfie and agreed that we would take him.
We picked him up and brought him home. He was very weak and in very poor condition. We had our vet out straight away to have Alfie's teeth done, restart his vaccinations, give him an overall health check and a worm count (which came back extremely high for all parasites) along with a worming program to deal with his heavy worm burden. We then started the task of feeding him a balanced and nutritious diet, to help him gain condition, across several feeds a day, along with as much hay as he could eat - which was a lot - usually on average 30kg per day!
As he began putting on condition we had our physio out to see him and he was given an overall body check as he had very little muscle mass. We noticed that he seemed a bit off on his front feet which we thought was just a case of him being foot sore as his feet were also in poor condition! This soreness went on for some time as he was very flat footed and had very weak hoof walls. So once again we called our vet to come and do basic foot x-rays to check the conformation of his feet! The x-rays showed that he had a good layer of sole and that his pedal bone was maybe on the flat side rather than slightly angled! Remedial trimming was then started and it was discussed whether Alfie would benefit from 3D pads to offer support to the structures of his feet. But we wanted to try several regular trims to help his hoof rehab.
Just recently things started to get progressively worse and Alfie was struggling to even be field sound. After consulting with our vet again it was decided that we would take him into the hospital so more in depth X-rays and assessments could be done. So yesterday we made the journey with Alfie to the vets.
Unfortunately, the x-rays showed the worse case of navicular changes that our vets had ever seen (several spurs on the navicular bone, mineralisation of the ddft and several area's of remodelling and calcification). We were all devastated as there is no amount of treatment that would give Alfie a painfree life and that the kindest thing for him would be to give him his wings! He had been suffering in silence for several years which is horrible to think about. He had put up and shut up for a long, long time! He was a very stoic gentleman right to the end, and he was laid to rest yesterday at 3:30pm with us by his side crying lots of tears into his mane.
What a lot of people donât realise is that every horses retraining, feed, upkeep, farrier, physio, husbandry and veterinary interventions all come out of my own pocket, which soon adds up. We donât get any kind of funding or financial help, from anyone or anywhere. Which on the whole is ok as long as I can recoup my costs when each horse finds their new home and as long we have a horse to sell at the end of the program. We donât ask a lot of money for our horses as we put more emphasis on finding the horses as good a match in their human as we can. I don't make any money doing this job and in many cases I don't even break even and make considerable losses and Iâm left with whopping bills to cover and no way of recouping my costs.
In this instance for our darling Alfie, I have invested over ÂŁ3000 in the 5 months he was with us, as our motto is the horse will have everything that they need when they need it and no expense will be spared regardless of the cost. In order for us to keep offering these majestic and deserving horses a future after racing and the like it has to remain viable and when it doesnât work out it leaves a tremendous hole in our ever dwindling budget.
This is something that we wish we didnât have to do and it's also something I'm not comfortable with, but we humbly ask if any of our dedicated followers are able to give to our gofundme page to help with the cost of Alfieâs rehabilitation and vets fees in order for us to then help the next horse in line. If you can we would be eternally grateful!
https://gofund.me/58d897e45
Written by Janey Hancock -
A Gentle Goodbye
A giant heart, so calm, so kind,
With eyes that knew the quiet mind.
You gave your grace, your strength, your soul,
A fleeting gift that made us whole.
To let you go, the hardest part
A choice made from a loving heart.
Kindness wrapped in silent tears,
The bravest act through deepest fears.
You were a blessing, pure and true,
And saying goodbye was love for you.
Dance amongst the stars Alfie x x
