Rehoming charity Horses4Homes reports a 70% increase in the number of horses listed with the charity for rehoming but only a 30% increase in the number of homes offered during 2014 compared to 2013. Despite the increased demand for the charity’s rehoming service by owners seeking to rehome Horses4Homes managed to rehome 50% more horses in 2014 compared with that of 2013.

The most common reason reported by owners needing to rehome their horses was that of financial difficulty.

A total of 270 horses were found new homes from the depths of Cornwall to the farthest reaches of Scotland and a little under 500 applications were made for horses via the charity’s website.   The charity has seen an 88% increase in the number of views each advert on the site receives compared to 2013 which has undoubtedly gone a long way to increasing the chances of finding the right home for each and every horse listed.  Each horse listing in 2014 received an average of 1548 views.

Traffic to the charity’s site has increased from an average of 28,000 visitors in 2013 to an average of 48,000 visitors per month in 2014, this represents a 71% increase in people coming to view the site which is really good news for the charity as the greater the audience the horses listed for rehoming reach the greater their chances of finding their suitable new home. The charity now has just under 17,000 people from throughout the UK and Ireland who have registered with them (which is entirely free) in order that they can list their horses (free), liaise with owners of horses or apply for horses through the site (£10).

Companion horses which are unrideable are still the most difficult horses and ponies to find homes. Just 4% of those horses rehomed through the charity were companion horses.  The % of companion/unrideable horses listed with the charity for rehoming amount to 14%.  Whilst the demand for these types of horses is low we are hopeful that in 2015 we will manage to find more of these horses loving new homes.

Chief Executive, Rebecca Evans, said “Finding the right home for a horse can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  We have a large population of relatively low value horses in the UK but the cost of keeping horses continues to rise.  Owners should continue to be very choosy about whom they rehome their horses to and Horses4Homes provides a system that is proven, increasing in popularity and it really works.  Over a third of the people who register to use the charity do so because we have been recommended to them, usually by people who have rehomed through us.”

The map  below shows the location of all the horses that were rehomed through the charity in 2014.  Owners who used the charity to help them rehome their horse stretched from Saint Stephen down in Cornwall where Jayjo was rehomed from right up to Inverness in Scotland as well as Bantry in County Cork Ireland where we rehomed Tudor Knight earlier in the year.  The red flags show horses rehomed, the lavender flags show the horses rehomed which were ex-racehorses, the green flags show the horses rehomed that were unridden companion horses and the yellow flags are for horses that were rehomed and then later returned to their owners.