Funding hope for Gordon animal sanctuary

For many years Anne Young would attend horse sales and take photographs to try to find homes for horses.

"I did worry about where they would go, because you didn't know what the homes were like," Ms Young told The Courier.

Wanting to do more to prevent horses being sent to knackeries, she helped found the Horse Shepherd Equine Sanctuary in 2014. While starting out small, after a couple of years and the purchase of an expansive 275-acre property in Gordon, in February 2016 Ms Young had a meeting with the RSPCA.

The organisation was preparing to seize more than 100 malnourished and distressed horses and ponies from a property at Warrak, near Ararat, but did not have the facilities to care for them. So the sanctuary took them in.

Then in April, the sanctuary was again approached by the RSPCA to take in more than 20 severely malnourished and mistreated horses from a property north of Melbourne. The thoroughbreds, which came to be known as the 'Bulla' horses, were discovered at the property along with the bodies of more than 20 deceased horses.

Since then, the sanctuary has continued to grow. Each year it takes in horses from all over the state - from miniature horses and shetland ponies to large, regal thoroughbreds.

The most commonly reported cruelty concern in Victoria is neglect, with the most reports made about horses.

While this neglect is in some cases deliberate, in others it is due to people finding themselves in situations of financial distress - so they can no longer afford to feed or care for their animals - or because they become unwell.

In other cases horses are taken in from the racing industry - because they have 'outlived their usefulness' or didn't make the grade - or because they are injured.

Volunteers help Ms Young to rehabilitate these horses and find them new, loving homes while the more elderly horses are able to happily live out their remaining years with plenty of love and food.

There are currently more than 122 horses and ponies residing at the property.

Aside from horses, the sanctuary has grown to accommodate other rescue animals too - who all live their lives in harmony filled with love and food. A pack of well-loved rescue dogs greet visitors, eager for a pat, while Sheldon the rescue ginger cat is never far behind the volunteers.

A flock of turkeys roam the property and ducks and geese live happily around a dam situated amidst grazing horses, close to rescued battery hens and two large pigs.

The sanctuary is also a home to sheep, alpacas, llamas, goats, fallow deer and donkeys.

Ms Young said the horses living among the menagerie of animals was positive, as it meant they had been exposed to a variety of animals before they are rehomed - where there could well be other animals living, too.

Paying for rugs, food and veterinary care for so many animals isn't cheap for a registered charity and so they can't take all of the animals they would like to.

"Financially, it's really tough. We're always struggling because we survive on donations and so we just can't help them all," Ms Young said.

While she pays for a farm hand, everyone else who pitches in at the sanctuary is a volunteer.

Stating that donations would "always be really important", especially when people pay to sponsor horses, Ms Young is trying to make the sanctuary "more sustainable".

It is hoped that a funding bid, lodged by Western Victoria MP Andy Meddick in the upcoming state budget, will enable this.

A little under $300,000, the money would be used to purchase extra horse therapy equipment - a water walker and spa.

"It means we will be able to rehabilitate horses faster and we will also be able to have people pay to use it too," Ms Young said.

"That will help with income to make it more sustainable and self-sufficient."

By the end of the year, Ms Young is also hoping to find a vet to be based from the property.

Mr Meddick, an Animal Justice Party MP, said the charity did an "incredible job" saving "an enormous number of horses every single year that unfortunately would otherwise end up at the knackery".

Mr Meddick said it was not a situation that would "just go away", so their "important" work needed to be supported by government.

"I'm hopeful that the government will see it in the same light that I do, and they'll approve it in this week's budget," he said.

The sanctuary recently had a successful open day, and plans to host more in future to share what they do with the wider community.

It has also built a trail, to open in spring, which will help to support the charity while a park is also in the works so people can visit the property, enjoy a picnic and feed the animals.

For more information, visit: https://horseshepherd.org.au/