Abandoned filly Bambi is settling into life at Ambitions Equestrian Centre in Berkshire, after being left to die in a car park.
The foal, who vets estimate is between seven- and eight-months old, was emaciated, weak and covered in her own muck when Nigel and Lucy Burney came across her at 10.30pm on Sunday.
They tried to move her into a field but the foal was too traumatised and weak to move, so they left her with feed and water and cameback in the morning with reinforcements — Charlotte Jackson from Ambitions.
With the help of the Newbury fighters and a vet, as Bambi had now collapsed, the little coloured cob was carried into Charlotte’s box and off again at the yard.
Five days on her condition is improving.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
Bambi has infected sores on her tail and vulva.
“She had an infection count of 33,” Charlotte told H&H. “A well horse is between and two and six and a poorly one up to 12. She shouldn’t be alive.
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“She is just bone and her back end looked like she’d been dipped in a slurry pit. But she is slowly improving.”
Charlotte said the foal will stay at Ambitions until she is well enough to be turned out, when the Burneys — who have offered her a home — will take over.
A JustGiving page is being set up to pay for Bambi’s vet bills. See the Ambitions Equestrian Centre Facebook page for more details.
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.
