The Horse Trust has today launched a personalised horse sponsorship scheme, which enables individuals or companies to sponsor the full costs of looking after a horse at the sanctuary.

Unlike horse adoption schemes run by other charities, The Horse Trust is only looking for one sponsor for each horse. Each sponsor will be asked to pay around £3,000 annually.

Sponsors will be sent regular updates and photos of their horse and can visit their horse at the sanctuary, getting a personal tour from a member of staff.

“At present The Horse Trust is unable to run a general horse adoption scheme as our very lean administrative team would be unable to handle the vast task of sending out regular updates to hundreds of sponsors.  This scheme is targeted at horse lovers who are able to commit to a larger annual payment and would like a more personal relationship with the horse they’re sponsoring,” said Susan Lewis, Marketing and Fundraising Manager at The Horse Trust.

The scheme’s first sponsor is Victoria Casey, who lives in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. After a visit to the Horse Trust she was determined to sponsor ‘Red’, one of the ponies rescued from Spindles Farm, Amersham.

Of the more then 100 horses, ponies and donkeys rescued from Spindles Farm in January 2008, the 14 considered most ‘at-risk’ were taken to The Horse Trust at Speen This group were too weak to travel further and required extensive veterinary treatment to help them recover.