When the Willows vet examined Cheyenne, she immediately urged us to call the police.

The police were incredibly kind and did all they could but it's clear that without evidence or witnesses, we will probably never catch the person who assaulted her.

Although Cheyenne recovered from her original attack, the stress and all of the medication she had to have to help her recover took a massive toll on her liver and kidneys. The whole willows team and vets worked around the clock to try and save her. For a while we thought we had won, but she went into multiple organ failure and we had to make the devastating decision to let her go. She didn't know anything about it and our vet did a fantastic job of helping her to slip peacefully away.

Cheyenne was very old, but she was generally in good health prior to this incident and although all living creatures must die, there is no doubt in our minds that this horrible attack is responsible for her death.

Since she died, we have had lots of people contacting us with absolutely appalling stories of their horses being brutalised by strangers and it's become very clear that such attacks are more common than you might think. For example, in 2015, a horse, quite local to Willows, was viciously attacked and killed. The Willows horses safety feels very fragile now. We don’t want any of our residents to be put at risk ever again so we have been gathering quotes on having more surveillance cameras installed and more secure fences. It’s going to be a big and expensive project but it's imperative that we protect all the equines here from any future attacks.


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25 Years Rescuing Animals