2024 for HEROS Charity

2024 was another busy and successful year at HEROS, with horses being retrained and rehomed, HEROS Education going from strength to strength and a portfolio of new events launched.

As always, we had a number of new former racehorses join HEROS last year, some with injury who have taken time to retrain and rehome and some who moved quickly through our retraining programme into fantastic new homes. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to rehome these wonderful versatile thoroughbreds, this is for a variety of reasons, from the cost to keep a horse to people being nervous of owning a thoroughbred, which comes from a lack of knowledge and horror stories about the breed.

When a horse is rehomed from HEROS, a thorough and robust process is adhered to, to ensure the safety and welfare of the horse and the safety of their new owner. We make sure we equip the person taking on a HEROS horse with all the tools they need to for both horse and owner to have a happy and safe life together.

We want to see these amazing animals enjoying a fantastic second life and we want to see the people who give it to them having a wonderful time with their horse. It is so important for the welfare of the horse, safety of the owner and for the sustainability of British horse racing’s retraining and rehoming model, that we can provide people with the knowledge and expertise needed for both horse and owner to thrive.

HEROS Education continues to grow and evolve, we now offer 64 spaces for students aged between 11-16 per week attending on the Enrichment Programme, which now has 3 study areas – Equine, Forest School and Creative Spaces. We also have 7 learners on the Post-16 Diploma. HEROS Education is an area that we will continue to work hard to develop, as we believe that all young people deserve an education and that education should not be a one size fits all. We launched a fundraising campaign in 2024 to help fund the conversion of an existing barn into a new Education Centre and an existing outdoor arena into an indoor one. Both these projects will enable us to significantly increase the number of students we can accommodate each week, will strengthen our retraining programme and will add depth to the equine programmes allowing more riding and horse based activities.

Towards the end of 2023 we announced football legend Harry Redknapp as an Ambassador for HEROS and with the support of Harry we embarked on two new fundraising events with Harry in 2024. The first being Harry Redknapp’s All Star HEROS Golf Day, which took place in early August at Ferndown Golf Club, Dorset. The day saw 22 teams take to the greens, with a celebrity playing in each team. It was a super day, and not only did we raise funds toward the new HEROS Education Centre, but we also got HEROS in front of a new audience, helping us to spread the HEROS message further.  We are excited to build on the success of last year’s event and the date and golf course for 2025 will be announced soon.

In early October, we hosted The HEROS Kempton Park Raceday. The sponsorship of six races and the day was very generously donated to us by Unibet. Trustee and longtime friend of HEROS Richard Philips and Desert Orchid’s jockey Colin Brown hosted 120 people in a buzzing atmosphere in the Desert Orchid Suite at Kempton. Harry Redknapp joined the hosts for a banterful and humorous chat and further funds were raised for the new all-important HEROS Education Centre. The event was lot of fun and guests had a great evening.

Yet again, we opened our doors for National Racehorse Week and we welcomed just shy of 100 people to the HEROS National Racehorse Week Open Day. The sun shone and visitors got to experience and see firsthand the work we do at HEROS, from riding demos, demos from our chiropractor and farrier to a talk from Grace, an insightful and educational morning was enjoyed by all.

In addition to our standout events, we were also kindly given two race sponsorships last year, one from Ascot Racecourse as we very proudly won their loosing betting slip competition during the 23/24 jump season, this resulted in a generous donation of £1,000 to HEROS and exposure throughout the jump season for our charity. The second was at Goodwood Racecourse in May. Along with eight guests we had a great day and the opportunity offered PR and exposure for HEROS.

A very special highlight of the year came in September, HEROS was nominated for both the BBC Radio Berkshire and BBC Radio Oxfordshire Make A Difference Awards in the Animal Category. We went along to the BBC Radio Berkshire Awards ceremony in Reading, full of expectation, but in a tough category of finalists, we were skeptical of lifting the honors. But to our great delight HEROS won. Then just a week later, we went off to the event in Oxford and were totally blown away to win the BBC Oxford Make A Difference Award as well. On both occasions, we were in a room with really amazing people who are making a huge difference in their communities. We were truly honored to win these awards, having our work recognised is so rewarding and most importantly it helps us to reach new people and show them the difference that HEROS makes to both former racehorses and young people.

Another highlight during the year, came at the Cheltenham Festival, where Good Morning Britian presenter Charlotte Hawkins chose HEROS to be one of the charities to benefit from the sale of the Boodles Gold Cup 100 Pendant. A stunning pendant that was designed to celebrate 100 years of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. This resulted in a very generous donation and a piece that went out on the ITV Racing on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day.

Our huge thanks go to everyone who has supported HEROS in 2024, every single one of you has made a huge contribution and difference. You have allowed us to continue our work creating bight futures for both our horses and students. Now it is full steam ahead for 2025, we have lots planned building on a fantastic 2024. Stay up to date on all HEROS happenings on our social channels and website.