Katie Price fails to raise money for horse sanctuary - Horses now doomed?

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PinkFairy

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I've been catching up with the "crusade" that KP went on to raise £600,000 for The Horse Refuge - home to 54 equines and have sadly read that it failed and that many horses are facing either being PTS or the slaughterhouse. :(

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3114945/Jord-SOS-fails-to-save-horses.html

I have to say, the first thing that came to mind was that KP could have EASILY saved them herself, as could their other supporters!

How terribly sad for Sara Ross. :(
 
Why should she? Why should she personally fund someone else's private enterprise? She's tried to help, as have others, and it seems the target was just too high. Which is hardly surprising when you look at the annual accounts of some small equine registered charitys, who struggle to raise even a fraction of the amount required here. Once the farm had been secured, the question would then be on-going funding. It is very, very hard, but for me the question is whether or not someone should "rescue" 50-odd equines when they didn't have any way of knowing that their future would be secure. I looked at the website recently and they were announcing the arrival of two more heavy horses, what were they thinking of taking them in, when they knew they were in danger of going under?
This has been going on for a long time, and maybe the responsible thing, (as long as 2 years ago isn't it?) would have been for the lady to start advertising for new loan homes for some of her animals.
I feel very sorry for the people who own these equines, because obviously their hearts are in the right place, but this has been a long time coming.
 
One of the main things I love about the "She should of donated" blah de blah comments are, How many of you have actually donated or even attempted to save the sanctuary?...
 
TinyPony, whilst I do agree with you that the woman may not have acted in the most responsible manner, I also think that as KP is trying to encourage people to put their hand in their pocket to fund this charity (is it an official charity? I dont know!) then she could have looked a little deeper than providing a few KP Equestrian headcollars.... She should lead by example if she wants people to donate!
 
Although i agree about KP im pretty sure the story has been made to sound worse than it is, after all theyve known that they where going to lose the land almost definatly so would have loaned out as many horses as possible, and yes its very sad that the horses that cant be rehomed will be PTS, but its unavoidable. All charities are struggling but they are one of the first to close :(
 
Unfortunately you can't expect people to put their hands in their pockets just because they have the money, if they did where would it end? How do you decide who gets £600,000 and who gets nothing there are plenty of other places in the same kind of position.

Getting people like KP, Simon Cowell and Joanna Lumley is something in itself it gave them the chance to get the cause publicised - much more than a lot get, some disappear without a word - sadly not all people who run these places realise the strength of PR!

I hope they manage to re-home these horses, for all we know they may have something up their sleeves to help on a temporary basis?

This story is probably still part of the trying to save them plan, ok the judge has given them 28 days but now all the Sun readers know this and all it takes is one person to change it around.
 
If these horses do have serious medical problems then maybe some of them may be better off pts when perfectly healthy animals are meeting the same fate.

For all those volunteering kp to donate the money have you any savings or how about donating a months salery?

edited to add just read the link above she states it is cruel to move horses that have suffered physical abuse out of their social groups!
Bit ott for me I am afraid she sounds like a horder.
 
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I am staggered that 3 VERY famous people couldn't raise that sort of money!

Just remember 3 years ago HHO members raised £s millions just by donating unwanted tack and feed to Operation Esther in just 2 weeks with just HH's help!

No TV, no adverts, no famous people, no likes of Max Clifford-just the good will and passion of HHO!

SO I ask again KP, SC & JL how could you not be able to raise 600k which to you guys is quite frankly 'pocket change'!
 
As we all think reallym if she cared that much why couldnt she use some of her own money?

But the place and rent it back to them as some els had said.

Thats the trouble with celebraties, they try to sound nice helping out these people and animls in need but there is so much more they could actually do..
 
Unfortunately I believe this place is not a registered charity. When I went to visit there to see if they had anything suitable to loan, they had 50 odd horses, not one of them for loaning. I can remember one that I stood outside her stable, was told to go no closer as she wouldnt know I was there. This horse was kept stables constantly because she was blind. I couldnt see where the quality of life was. I am sure the owner of this place feels she is doing the right thing, but harsh as it sounds, I feel it wouldnt be such a mess if hard decisions had been made at the right time about some of these animals instead of them living on into their 30's and 40's wiht no quality of life.
Sorry.
 
The place is not a registered charity, and let's face it, they aren't going to get registered at this stage. The advantage of donating to a registered charity is that at least you have some financial transparency, and a board of trustees overseeing things.
I too have been to this place, and my concern was that they didn't have enough land for the number of equines in residence. Plus, as said above, in some cases you really had to question the quality of life. I get quite annoyed when I read people like this saying that horses can't possibly be rehomed because of their "special needs". OK, that could be the case for a few, but it certainly won't be for all of them. How patronising to insinuate that they are the only people who can deal with these sort of cases.
We will never know if the celebs have or have not donated some of their own money, I do believe it was mentioned at some point that Simon Cowell had. We will also never know if the celebrities have their own reasons for limiting what they will donate, there is such thing as "good money after bad" (or not), it's their personal decison. Why should they be criticised just because they stuck their necks out and tried to so something to help?
I have come across several situations like this before and I'm afraid my view is a bit jaded. Put it this way, I could go out and rent a place, fill it up with horses and ponies until I ran out of money, and then start campaigning claiming to be "charitable". Maybe we should all do it. As I said, I do feel sorry for the people involved though, because they have lost everything they have trying to keep this place afloat. Which just demonstrates that they over-stretched themselves in the first place. Now the horses, ponies and donkeys need to be rescued from them don't they?
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blucanoo1990 said:
As we all think reallym if she cared that much why couldnt she use some of her own money?

But the place and rent it back to them as some els had said.

Thats the trouble with celebraties, they try to sound nice helping out these people and animls in need but there is so much more they could actually do..
Click to expand...

But where does it stop? If she brought the place and rented it back to the the would still have to find the rent, the money to keep the horses and ponies etc. Plus she would be responsibile for the land and buildings and the upkeep as landlord and probably have to comply with numerous regulations. It is a huge ask of someone no matter how loaded they are.

A lot of celebs donate a lot of money without it being public knowledge, they actually do it for the cause not for the glory.

It is awful the situation they find themselves in, you have to be so so careful when running something like this particularly if you rent land, the land being taken from you is always something that can happen and you should bare in mind and so be very careful.
 
None of you categorically know that KP hasn't donated money. But there is most likely a tax issue with a private gift of that size....because that is what it is! They are not a registered charity and to be honest sound more like she collects animals rather than a sanctuary. There have been pictures of them with shocking feet etc and the animals are hers. There is no transparency as to where the money goes and at the end of the day if one celebrity chose to donate they would be getting hit up for money for the rest of their lives. A randomly collected fund would actually be of more benefit and would be some help towards them eventually becoming a registered charity in the future but to be honest I doubt that is feasible.
 
To me, this is just someone who has chosen to own a lot of equines. Then run out of money. When you take out the emotional appealing, that's the situation. She doesn't "run a sanctuary", she owns a lot of need animals. If you run something that implies that there is an organisation that you have been put in charge of. I'm amazed that they got some sort of award recently, they wouldn't have won any when I was there, although I've seen worse.
 
Sara (owner of charity ) took on a friend of mines shire about 6 years ago when she could no longer keep him... They paid x amount to the charity every month for his ' livery ' if you like... She had the horse put down and failed to tell them so they continued to take the money every month!!

I also ran a charity fun show for them ( When she was the willow tree sanctuary in essex ) I raised £4500 in 1 day with the help of friends, It was a really fun day and everyone asked if I was going to run another one.... Once Jack is a little bigger I think I will... But definately for a different charity... Most of you are right - Alot of the horses should be pts in their best interest :(

xx
 
Reading the replies, I've realised there's a lot of things that I was unaware of at the time of posting, so I do apologise if the post came across in the wrong way. It was not a KP bashing, (not that I feel it's been taken that way) but I was just trying to highlight how sad it is that 54 horses are now going to have to be either PTS or re-homed as quickly as possible.

I hope that the horses find the best homes possible.
 
Tinypony said:
Why should she? Why should she personally fund someone else's private enterprise? She's tried to help, as have others, and it seems the target was just too high. Which is hardly surprising when you look at the annual accounts of some small equine registered charitys, who struggle to raise even a fraction of the amount required here. Once the farm had been secured, the question would then be on-going funding. It is very, very hard, but for me the question is whether or not someone should "rescue" 50-odd equines when they didn't have any way of knowing that their future would be secure. I looked at the website recently and they were announcing the arrival of two more heavy horses, what were they thinking of taking them in, when they knew they were in danger of going under?
This has been going on for a long time, and maybe the responsible thing, (as long as 2 years ago isn't it?) would have been for the lady to start advertising for new loan homes for some of her animals.
I feel very sorry for the people who own these equines, because obviously their hearts are in the right place, but this has been a long time coming.
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^^^ I fully agree!
 
I would not give this woman a penny, she is not a reg charity and as someone said before, just a hoarder of horses who would not face up to reallity. We could all go round threatening that our horses will be PTS if no one gives us money to help us keep them!
 
I would imagine that the RSPCA, WHW and local council are heavily involved in this - as I've said before.

Horses that are too sick to be re-homed presumably do not have a good quality of life, so pts is not a bad option. Healthy horses will be dealt with by the welfare authorities.

As this sanctuary is not a registered charity - what exactly are people donating for? The upkeep of the horses or the purchase of a private property. Who would that property then be owned by? That is why people like KP and SC don't just dish out the money. Presumably they don't need to own any more property, and are not minded to purchase this one and sign it over to the people who run the sanctuary.
 
From the website:

'For a brief period in 2004 the Horse Refuge was merged with a sanctuary in Essex, under whose charitable umbrella they operated. This venture was a complete disaster from every angle so the Horse Refuge parted their company and moved to its present home in December 2008'.

This appeal seems to have been going on for at least a year so why move somewhere with little security regarding the time of the lease?

And what exactly is she buying for 600k? Seems a lot of money. Does anyone know ie, how much land etc. Surely there are other yards to rent or land to rent??

Like others have said it's maybe time for her to realise she can't provide for the horses any longer and do what's best for them - and not to take in any more!
 
Teddybully said:
Like others have said it's maybe time for her to realise she can't provide for the horses any longer and do what's best for them - and not to take in any more!
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Yes, I agree.

I wonder how many have been rehomed as the website gives no details about re-homing. :confused:
 
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