World Horse Welfare
World Horse Welfare is an international charity which strives to improve the horse-human partnership in all of its guises. The charity helps horses in need, horses in sport and leisure and horses used in work and production. By working with owners, communities, organisations, institutions and governments, the charity has a track record of improving welfare standards and stamping out suffering in the UK and worldwide.
Since the charity was founded by Ada Cole in 1927, it has improved welfare through hands-on care, research, education and influence. World Horse Welfare supports the responsible involvement of horses in sport and advises sport regulators including the FEI and the British Horseracing Authority.
The charity aims to address the source of a problem as well as the symptoms, so it funds and conducts research into the root causes of welfare problems and shares practical advice through its educational materials and webinars. The charity has influenced more than 50 pieces of legislation, helping to bring about better welfare standards in Scotland as well as the wider UK and Europe, and increasingly internationally.
World Horse Welfare helps to improve the lives of tens of thousands of working horses, mules and donkeys globally – and the families who rely on them for their livelihoods – through its international programmes. These projects work with local partner organisations to share knowledge of equine care and handling skills with horse owning communities in 16 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Closer to home, with its four Rescue and Rehoming Centres – in Aberdeenshire, Lancashire, Norfolk and Somerset – World Horse Welfare runs the UK’s largest equine rescue and rehoming scheme. On average, the charity takes in more than 300 horses and ponies each year and aims to find them loving new homes after they’ve been expertly rehabilitated. If you could offer a lucky rescue horse a home of their own, there is usually a wide variety of horses and ponies ready for rehoming at any one time and you can see them all at worldhorsewelfare.org/rehome.
