Welcome to Blue Acre
We are a registered charity, dedicated to the rescue, care, rehabilitation and, where possible, re-homing of abused, neglected or abandoned horses and ponies.
We aim to rehabilitate and re-home as many of the horses we take in as possible, however most of them come from an abused or neglected background which means, in most cases, we have no knowledge of what they may have been through. All we really know is that we have a very scared, untrusting and unhappy horse on our hands.
Our team work very hard to restore their faith in human beings and allow them to grow and flourish in our care while we try to ascertain whether they can be brought on to be ridden or, due to physical, mental or age-related issues, need to remain here for the duration of their lives or possibly be re-homed purely as companion horses.
Our horses all live outside 24/7 as one huge herd - it really is a rare sight to see so many horses in one group, just enjoying “being horses” as they would be in the wild.
The charity was started in 2002 by Caron North and Bob Regan on a 42-acre site on Ham Island, Old Windsor. It started with Caron’s own horse, Raffles, who was soon joined by a rescued horse called Blue (who we are named after) and today we have more than 50 rescues in our care. Caron has been around horses all her life and her love of horses and knowledge of every aspect of their care is what enables the charity to exist today.
Something also worth a mention is that our sanctuary is not limited to just horses and we also care for 3 sheep, 3 goats, 2 pigs, 5 rescue dogs and quite a few cocks, chickens and ducks.
We run on a small core team of four, with a wonderful support network of volunteers all of which dedicate their time for free. We are always looking for new volunteers to help with any and every aspect of the operation – maintenance of the farm (handymen always needed); fund raising; grooming or even just spreading the word of what we do.
Funds are generated by public donation; from events we hold / attend; grants (rare) and from a sponsorship programme where people can sponsor one or more of the horses and ponies from as little as £10 per month.
In terms of our running costs – it might help to indicate how every single penny helps:
A bag of feed - £10
A large bale of hay - £44
A foot trim for those without shoes - £20 (discount from our farrier)
A set of shoes - £60 min
A wormer - £10 - £22
Annual vaccinations - £40
Teeth examination - £90+
And as you can imagine veterinary costs can be huge and soon mount up
Currently it truly is a constant weekly challenge for us to survive and at times we truly don't know how we will cope. So many times we have thought we wouldn't but our story and our future continues with support from our local community.
If you are able to help us raise funds through the company you work for have any initiatives for fund raisng or can afford a small donation then please get in touch.
We would be very grateful if you can follow us on Facebook as we regularly post current information and charity announcements on there. If you wouldn’t mind sharing our page and tagging your friends / anyone that might be interested in what we do that would be greatly appreciated.
We are also on Instagram -
If you would like to talk to us about anything at all then please head to our Contact Page and one of our team will get straight back to you.
Our Team
Caron North: Co-founder, yard manager
Bob Regan: Co-founder and farm maintenance
Veanne Filkins: Rehoming and Rehabilitation Adviser
Sue Turner: Fundraising Manager
Thank you for taking the time to look at our website. It means a great deal to us when people take an interest in what we do
