A safe place: how the sanctuary is providing temporary care for Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust ponies

The Mare and Foal Sanctuary recently gave a temporary home to four lovely moorland ponies. The geldings came to us from the Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust who needed to find a good home for their equine assisted learning ponies whilst they took on other core work.

Boss, Rolo, Rum Chatta and Braveheart, all aged between five and 26, arrived at our sanctuary in March and have been enjoying their time with us. The ponies are happiest when they are all together and have been staying in their own small herd living out in the fields under the watchful eye of our Sanctuary Care team. The four enjoy human company and have regular visits from our staff whilst they take their well-earned break from their normal duties providing equine assisted learning to people in the community.

The Mare and Foal Sanctuary doesn’t provide temporary care very often, but we were delighted to be able to work with the trust and support them when they needed it. The two charities are both members of the National Equine Welfare Council (NEWC) and have collaborated on several projects in recent months. This has included a large multi-agency operation to help control strangles outbreaks around Bellever on Dartmoor.

Dru Butterfield, Chief Executive of Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust, explains: “We are incredibly grateful to the amazing team at the Mare and Foal Sanctuary – a place based on equine kindness and support. They have worked with us a number of times in the last 12 months, which is something we are incredibly grateful for. Our ponies’ welfare is paramount and knowing they have a safe place to go for a few weeks makes all the difference to our peace of mind whilst we realign our charity with its core objectives and catch up with handling some feral youngsters.”