The Horse Care Units countrywide play an important role in the community but now find themselves under serious financial pressure after an undertaking by the previous CEO of the National Horseracing Authority failed to materialise.
In an open letter to the industry, Chairman Ronnie Napier writes:
All of you are aware of the fact that we have made approaches to the stakeholders in the racing industry for a more sustainable funding stream for the Trust and the three Horse Care Units operating under our umbrella.
These approaches have been in discussion for the last seven years.
The industry has told us that they agree with the approach in principle but that all stakeholders will need to contribute on a fair and proportionate basis to the NHT going into the future.
However a basis for this fair and proportionate payment has not yet been agreed by all stakeholders.
When the previous CEO of the National Horseracing Authority was appointed some two years ago he announced that horse welfare would be one of his major objectives for the NHA and that this was regarded as a priority objective.
We accordingly engaged with him on the issue of support for the NHA and the three Units.
As a result of these discussions we were told by Mr Lyndon Barends that the NHA had agreed in principle to take the lead in the industry to support horse welfare and that we could expect funding for the National Horse Trust to commence in the second half of 2018.
Unfortunately it now appears that this information was not correct. However our cash flow expectation was that we would receive funding in 2018 and the result is that we are therefore now badly short of funds.
As a result the Board of the NHA had to make a decision at the end of 2018 to temporarily suspend the monthly payments that we were making to the Units until our financial position had improved. This is obviously highly detrimental to the Trust and the three Units.
We have however now reengaged with the new CEO of the National Horseracing Authority, Vee Moodley, and he is doing his best to see that sustainable support can be provided to the National Horse Trust in the near future.
However in the interim we have the shortfall that I have referred to and we are asking all of our traditional supporters and any other members of the racing industry to please URGENTLY support us in the short-term so that we can recommence the flow of funds to the Units to enable them to do their invaluable work for horse welfare.
We urge you to respond to this appeal and donations can be made to the following account:
Name: The National Horse Trust
Bank: FNB Johannesburg
Account Number: 50600156480
Branch: Southdale
Branch Code: 254205
Reference: [Surname] Special Letter
Horse Care Units:
Gauteng
Website: www.horsecare.org.za
Email Address: [email protected]
Phone No: 016 360 9900
Emergencies: 082 921 1644
KwaZulu-Natal
Website: www.coastalhorsecareunit.org.za
Email Address: [email protected]
Phone No: 031 782 1434
Emergencies: 073 550 3061
Eastern Province
Website: www.echcu.co.za
Email Address: [email protected]
Phone No: 041 366 1594
Emergencies: 072 357 2505
