"Rescuing" horses from auctions

They're selling a couple of Suffolk fillies I think. If they can get traction maybe they should do a breeding programme. I just don't know how much suffolks are almost like a museum item. I'd love one if they came in less big sizes. They are just so impractical in size. But beautiful.

They have got to find a way rather than relying on people's soppy hearts. Or maybe become a charity and start getting money for protecting endangered species 🤷‍♀️
 
marmalade76 said:
I'm thinking they're just con artists.
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They seem to have a big 'fan base' who believe that they can do no wrong. Some of their fans do act as if it is actually a charity.
mariew said:
They have got to find a way rather than relying on people's soppy hearts. Or maybe become a charity and start getting money for protecting endangered species 🤷‍♀️
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Agreed.

After the whole auction episode, I just have no time for them at all - I think they behaved quite badly in embellishing a story with the sole intent of getting cash out of people.
 
Just seen their latest begging post on facebook. Horse prices are the highest they have ever been, how they are not making money selling is a complete mystery to me. And lots of larger people want to ride and cannot because local schools do not have weightcarriers up to the job so stick to their weight limits.
A local riding school is booming and just doubled its facilities and horses, they cannot keep up with demand for pony parties, lessons, livery and beach rides, own a pony days etc. The difference is they keep it affordable.
 
angel7 said:
A local riding school is booming and just doubled its facilities and horses, they cannot keep up with demand for pony parties, lessons, livery and beach rides, own a pony days etc. The difference is they keep it affordable.
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I was thinking about this...we all know that keeping horses, especially the larger ones, can be incredibly expensive.
But this is a business, charging relatively high prices for rides - not to mention selling some horses, which would certainly generate income.

Does any other equestrian business do this (ie, asking for 'donations' to horses' upkeep)?
Personally I've never come across any others.
Obviously charities do ask for support and have every right to, but they are charities, not businesses.
 
Former (and arguably less dotty) partner of the CHH lady did set up a successful fundraising appeal in 2019 for a new barn for the completely separate operation Adventure Clydesdales on Dartmoor. AC is now closed down due to owner’s ill health. No idea what happened to the new barn or the donations for it.

www.horseandhound.co.uk

Clydesdales’ owner can ‘start to dream’ after public donations secure horses’ future - Horse & Hound

‘We feel it would be a great shame to lose what is an amazing and versatile horse and riding with them on the moor has given them an extra purpose’
www.horseandhound.co.uk www.horseandhound.co.uk
 
Nancykitt said:
Does any other equestrian business do this (ie, asking for 'donations' to horses' upkeep)?
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Yes, there's a dealer who "rescued" an underweight mare with foal from an auction who had a beg on line up and running within 24 hours. These unfortunate 2 were doing the rounds of auctions and bin end dealers having been previously at the same place as Ossy. That's just a recent one. I've also seen several outfits calling themselves charities, who actually are not, doing this but I'd have to trawl back further through fb to remind myself who they are.
 
Nancykitt said:
I was thinking about this...we all know that keeping horses, especially the larger ones, can be incredibly expensive.
But this is a business, charging relatively high prices for rides - not to mention selling some horses, which would certainly generate income.

Does any other equestrian business do this (ie, asking for 'donations' to horses' upkeep)?
Personally I've never come across any others.
Obviously charities do ask for support and have every right to, but they are charities, not businesses.
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Calvert trust asked and got a huge amount for their horses. I think they claimed they needed over 200k for 20horses for a year if I remember right. And only a few months later they managed to fundraise another 20-30k for feed.
 
Beausmate said:
I wonder what HMRC makes of non-charity business getting income from donations?
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I had a look into it and it seems to be allowed - or at least not explicitly disallowed. I must admit donating to fund someone's business seems very naive; it really is funding someone's lifestyle, the whole point of a business is it funds itself whereas an actual charity should be gathering funds to apply to a purpose.
But most of what I found was talking in the sense of starting a business, so donations with Kickstarter or whatever, rather than keeping an existing one afloat. So may be incorrect.
They seem to have failed to do basic market research into what people are willing to pay for riding holidays/experiences, or at least ballsed up basic calculations on running costs vs income to be profitable, to have to fundraise this regularly. I must confess to having very little sympathy: everyone is struggling with the cost of hay right now, everyone finds high vets bills hard, not everyone still goes out and buys more animals then expects the public to pay for them.
I'm not sure why not just take out a business loan, unless they tried and got turned down. What do you do if the public isn't taken in by your sob story?
 
There is another horsey holiday place based quite remotely on West Coast of Scotland - I think there holiday prices/adventures are similarly priced, they don't have the pull of the heavy horses, been running a few years and I don't recall seeing them ever looking for donations for feed etc etc.... Either it's a poor business model or they've realised people will dig in to keep there business costs down!
 
They have a seasonal campsite, too. It’s limited to outfits of 6m length or less, which rules us out, but I’d have stayed there and gone out for a ride before they outed themselves with the begging appeals. It was on my bucket list to do after Adventure Clydesdales shut down.

They might have a lot of support from their flying monkeys, but the more knowledgeable horsey types who might have booked rides with them will have seen straight through their begging appeals for their not rescues.
 
FieldOrnaments said:
I had a look into it and it seems to be allowed - or at least not explicitly disallowed. I must admit donating to fund someone's business seems very naive; it really is funding someone's lifestyle, the whole point of a business is it funds itself whereas an actual charity should be gathering funds to apply to a purpose.
But most of what I found was talking in the sense of starting a business, so donations with Kickstarter or whatever, rather than keeping an existing one afloat. So may be incorrect.
They seem to have failed to do basic market research into what people are willing to pay for riding holidays/experiences, or at least ballsed up basic calculations on running costs vs income to be profitable, to have to fundraise this regularly. I must confess to having very little sympathy: everyone is struggling with the cost of hay right now, everyone finds high vets bills hard, not everyone still goes out and buys more animals then expects the public to pay for them.
I'm not sure why not just take out a business loan, unless they tried and got turned down. What do you do if the public isn't taken in by your sob story?
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If they are using donations for the business, wouldn't that count as income and be subject to tax somewhere along the line? I'd have thought you would need to declare it as something either way.
 
My understanding is; If you are not giving anything in return they can be kept as tax free donations. If you offer something in return (eg a voucher, t shirt or even a postcard) then all donations are subject to tax.
I'll wait for someone more qualified to confirm this but I know this has been an issue for other go fund me type activities.
 
It seems that tax on donations to a non-charity business is a complicated thing. Limited companies may have to pay tax on donations. Couldn't find out much else in the brief look I just had.
 
If they can show that the donations are being spent on 'expenses' (hay, feed etc) then these would normally be offset anyway so I can't see why they would be taxable - but I can imagine that it's complicated!
What I can't understand is that when I had lessons on my instructor's riding school ponies, the cost of the lesson factored in the pony's keep.
I don't get why this isn't the case with this particular outfit, especially as the prices aren't exactly cheap...
 
Beausmate said:
If they are using donations for the business, wouldn't that count as income and be subject to tax somewhere along the line? I'd have thought you would need to declare it as something either way.
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Honestly I'm not sure, but I'd think so, just because it's money coming into the business after all?! Just not sure how would be the proper way to declare it. There's accountants on here who might know but I can't remember any usernames 🤦
This muddying of the water between business and 'charitable' enterprise is confusing but then I am easily confused 😂
 
FieldOrnaments said:
Honestly I'm not sure, but I'd think so, just because it's money coming into the business after all?! Just not sure how would be the proper way to declare it. There's accountants on here who might know but I can't remember any usernames 🤦
This muddying of the water between business and 'charitable' enterprise is confusing but then I am easily confused 😂
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It does look like a handy way to give your money a quick wash if it's not declarable.

I would think that a horse business is even more complicated, as it's using livestock that aren't classed as such.
 
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