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TREW: Assisting the Community

Cranbourne Aged Horses

TREW heard about this case through a woman who is a wonderful contact of ours, via the Brotherhood of St Lawrence and Edgar's Mission.

George is an elderly gentleman and has been in and out of hospital, sometimes in lengthy stints, without being able to really rely on anyone to care for his horses and ponies. He's been pretty distraught about the condition that some of these horses have fallen into, and desperately wants to rectify the situation. The problem is he is restricted by his mobility and he fears terribly of them ending up in the wrong hands. Plus most of them are quite aged, several of them are over 30 years old and he has had them for many years.

Much work had already been done before TREW became involved.

A fantastic local vet had been out to examine and prescribed feeding recommendations and required treatment to all the horses and ponies, he also took two of the ponies needed more extensive care onto his own property to treat them. Barrie has done a stellar job undertaking the care and welfare of the horses/ponies to not only meet their needs but to enable George to remain with his beloved horses.

TREW arranged for some rugs to be put aside at Horseland Narre Warren for the animals who did not have them. When Tanya got to George's one Saturday, she found one TB mare in good condition except for hooves in need of a trim. She was running in a large grassy paddock with an agisted horse that had dinner-plate flared hooves desperately needing attention. Tanya was told they were to be attended to by a farrier in the coming week as organised by the agistee.

In a smaller paddock next to the house was an underweight chestnut SB. Her hooves were in need of attention and her legs seemed to be attracting rather a lot of flies which were biting her and causing little bleeding spots.

In the house yard were two ponies with Cushings. Both of them had reasonable hooves but the taller one was quite thin. In the back paddock were two more ponies that had long hooves and one was grossly overweight.

Leigh and Rebecca headed over on the Sunday and wormed and vaccinated all of the horses and ponies without too much hassle. Those that were desperate for some hoof care received a very nice trimming courtesy of Leigh and the remaining animals that required rugs were fitted out with gear donated by our members and the wider community. A diet and changed paddock environment was recommended for the overweight ponies.

A local person has been arranged to come out and do some general care and grooming tasks. For the moment, our part is done, but we will be in contact to see if further help is required.

2011 Update

TREW continued to provide assistance (worming and trimming) to the animals, and feed advice to the guardian of these horse and ponies throughout the New Year. Unfortunately the grey pony, Alibar suffered a bout of colic and under vet advice this spirited pony was sadly euthanized.

George Smith, owner of the seven horses and ponies in Cranbourne passed away this April. TREW had been assisting with the care of the animals for the past year providing rugs, general care and advice to other agencies also involved.

Upon George’s passing, TREW had offered all along to take over the care for all the equines, but custody of these animals was legally left to another party.

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