Today we've come
to the Tower House in Winchester, Tower House Horses, who are a charity
themselves, and we've come here to see three World Horse Welfare rescue ponies.
When I first met Paddy, he was confined to a stable
along with his friend on a DIY yard.
And we were looking into a welfare concern where the allegation revolved around him
not having access to water, not going out the stable, not being fed
and so we started to build this picture
of of a longer term potential neglect.
And in those kind of situations, we're looking to, you speak to people,
find an owner, speak to a yard manager, and obviously assess
the horses and try and have a look at them and see what kind of health they're in.
And to really validate or not whether those allegations are correct.
So when we saw first of all, Paddy, he was in a stable, but it was
it was quite a dark space, was quite a few hazardous areas within the stable.
Things that certainly gave me concern.
Nails sticking out broken glass at one point
and he didn't seem to want to interact with people.
He was really quite shut down towards human interaction, which is quite
it's quite telling when you see a horse in that scenario
because you start to suspect that they're not forthcoming
with human interaction and therefore they're not they're not getting that
human interaction with a lot of investigating of work.
We were able to gather enough evidence to say, no,
you know, this person that owns this horse has absolutely failed him
and haven't provided him with his basic life, necessities,
water, appropriate feed,
all of those kind of things that a horse needs.
So we were happily we were able to work with the RSPCA
and gather enough evidence, which was, you know, it was time consuming.
It was what needed to be done.
Gather lots and lots of regular evidence to be able to put before a court to say,
look, this person, this owner is not doing what they should be doing,
even though we've all given them the advice that they should
that they needed to be able to do what they needed to do.
And so ultimately, the courts agreed and found the owner guilty
of of neglect under a Section nine offense of the Animal Welfare Act.
And happily, Paddy and his companion, who he was
with, were signed over and awarded to World Horse Welfare
I think we've heard
quite a lot recently in the press about horses having a job to do.
And I think historically, probably the equine industry
has always thought about a job that horses do as being a written job.
But we are really starting to recognize that there are many more jobs
that horses can do and using horses in a therapy environment
is really becoming more and more popular because people are recognizing
what kind of valuable input the horse is can have on on human lives.
And so it's not just about looking after the human element of it,
it's about looking after the partnership and that special relationship
that horses can have with humans
and spreading the word that that's an option
for people to have help with their problems through this amazing facility.
We came into being because we
realized the great power of horses to heal people.
So we work with people with all kinds of mental health issues.
And people who have suffered life trauma,
anxiety, depression.
And the great thing about horses
is that they are incredibly healing and empathetic to be around.
So we work with them to help our clients
rebuild their confidence and self esteem,
to gain emotion and resilience,
improve their ability to communicate and just generally go away feeling
uplifted by having spent time with these wonderful creatures
that we work with a number of beneficial groups.
We work with, for example, victims of domestic abuse,
previous offenders who are going to rehab people
with alcohol and substance misuse issues, young people with anxiety and depression.
The wonderful thing about horses is that they what we do with them works
with a whole variety of people
because it gets right down to the the core, the lack of self
esteem, the lack of confidence that people come with.
And it's beautiful to see the horses interact with them
because they don't judge you.
They don't have an opinion about where you've come from or what you've done.
They're totally without judgment.
And they give you accurate feedback about your emotional state,
which is the basis of how we work.
That feedback that the horse gives us tells us what
we need to know about the person in that interaction.
And then we can help them build their confidence
as they gradually get more used to being around.
The horses do very simple tasks nothing nail bitingly,
you know, out of your comfort zone about what they do here.
They'll just spend time with the horses, groom them, lead them around,
just learn how to make a connection.
Because obviously making a connection for some of our clients
is a very challenging thing to do, but the horses make it easy for them.
My dealings with World Horse Welfare go way back
because I bought a new horse and he had a companion already with him.
Unfortunately, the companion died within three days of me
having this new horse come home.
So I was desperately phoning around to rescue centers and the ILPH
had the wonderful Tommy, my little small pony.
So he's been with me for 20 years.
So my background with World Horse Welfare goes back that far
because obviously ILPH became World Horse Welfare,
and after that we went back to them repeatedly for other members of the herd.
As we were building the herd, we acquired Blackie
and then last year Paddy joined the team,
I think rehoming a horse
from World Horse Welfare has been
a really positive experience because you get fantastic support.
They're also very good at matching you with the kind of horse you need.
And I think there's awareness generally of equine assisted learning
and this field of activity grows and also world horse
wealth have become used to what we need in a in a pony.
And, you know, some ponies come from very challenging backgrounds.
There are very few we can't, you know, consider taking because actually
that's one of the the magic ingredients with our ponies is the fact that they also
match our clients in some ways because their levels of anxiety and so on.
And in that way, the horses bring a lot to the therapeutic process
because they've got the lived experience, they've been there, got the t shirt.
And so they're fantastic for that one world as well.
So incredibly supportive
and we know we can call up any time and ask for advice and help.
And it's been a really fantastic process.
So coming
here today to see to see our horses, see how rescue horses are
is just an incredible thing to see when you think about the things
that they've gone through in their own lives to then conquer
those problems and furthermore go on to help humans
in solving their problems, I think is just an incredible thing.
And certainly as somebody who's rescued a horse, you know,
to see them in this kind of scenario, you just couldn't ask for more.
They've definitely fallen on their feet here with the Tower House.