Adelaide Hills sanctuary run by Helen Gerard works to save unwanted horses

HELEN Gerard is one of South Australia’s wealthiest women with a passion for animal welfare. Her mission is to save horses from the knackery.

MILLIONAIRE Helen Gerard is one of South Australia’s wealthiest women – with a passion for animal welfare.

Since she was a child, horses have been her first love and has led to the prominent member of the Gerard family dynasty – best known for the Clipsal electrical business – creating South Australia’s first horse rescue centre.

Windamere Horse Haven was established a year ago on a rolling 4ha property just outside Hahndorf.

The not-for-profit charity is a refuge for abandoned horses suffering from cruelty and neglect.

With the help of her indispensable manager, Sonya Catton, Ms Gerard is determined to save as many horses as she can from the knackery.

The mother of two and grandmother to three can’t bear the thought of unwanted or badly injured horses ending as fertiliser, dog food or even as prime steaks sold worldwide for human consumption for as much as $100 a kilo.

“It just boils my blood to think of a horse being sent to the doggers (a term for a horse abattoir),” Ms Gerard said.

“We know we can’t save every horse from the doggers but we’ll always look to squeeze in a desperate case – the really badly treated ones always get priority.”

Caspar was one of those. The five-year-old Appaloosa gelding is the horse that sparked the idea to create a horse sanctuary.

He was just skin and bones when Ms Catton, a former veterinary nurse, first saw him three years ago on a private property.

“He had shocking sunburn on his muzzle and ugly ulcerated eyes that left him nearly blind,” she said.

“He hadn’t turned out to be the star his owners had hoped. But he’s our star now.

“I looked for somewhere to take him but there wasn’t anything and that’s when I thought Helen would be the one to save him.”

Ms Catton, 36, who has a six-year-old daughter, Shayla, has known Ms Gerard for several years since they struck up a friendship around horses.

Perhaps it was because they were both born in the Year of the Horse.

Ms Catton was “horse help” at a former property Ms Gerard owned on the Fleurieu Peninsula where she housed, among other unwanted horses, five retired Clydesdales from the Victor Harbor horse-drawn tram.

The Hahndorf property, currently at capacity with 11 horses, is ideal for horse care, management and training, but the demand to house more has increased since Windamere began.

Ms Gerard, a cousin of prominent businessman Rob Gerard, has bought an additional 56ha property at Callington, close to Monarto Zoo, to accommodate the overflow. There are 10 horses there.

They include standardbreds (used in harness racing) and thoroughbreds (gallopers) too slow to race or too injured to continue.

Magnificent looking two-year-old filly Diva is a typical example, who was thought “too mad” to train but is thriving at Windamere.

Horses also come from owners too sick to care for them or people naive about the work required to look after the “family pet”. And then there are the cases of abandonment and cruelty.

Windamere offers its rehabilitated horses for adoption at a nominal fee of about $800.

Recent successes include thoroughbred Fabio, a 12-year-old gelding, and Coco, a 24-year-old Shetland pony.

The two are inseparable and now settled with a family at Two Wells.

Ms Gerard is pleased to have established just this week a relationship with the RSPCA through which more horses could be sent their way.

The extended Gerard family is getting involved. Helen’s daughter, Kate Gerard, is on the committee managing Windamere and Simon Gerard, son of Rob and chief executive of the Gerard Lighting Group, is involved with sponsorship. When the Gerard family sold Clipsal – established by Helen’s grandfather, Alfred, in 1920 – to French group Schneider Electric in 2004 for $750 million, its share from the 47 per cent ownership was $352 million.

Ms Gerard remains a key shareholder in Gerard Corporation, which owns several other businesses.

“I’ve been very lucky to have the money to start this all off, but now the charity has to find a way to fund itself,” she said. “We need financial sponsors and supporters and we desperately need volunteers to help us care for the horses.”

There are currently 22 staff as part of the Windamere operation, offering services from as little as an hour a week.

Windamere has found 11 horses loving homes so far, but Caspar is not yet among them. Not that they haven’t tried.

“We’ve gone to adopt him out a few times but on each occasion something has stopped him leaving Windamere,” Ms Catton said.

“The last time he fell over in a paddock and hurt himself – we’re thinking it’s the universe telling us to keep him.”

The women are determined no animal will ever leave the Hahndorf property heading for one of South Australia’s two horse slaughterhouses – at Peterborough and Mt Compass.

“With the footage I’ve seen, I can’t image doing that to a mate,” Ms Catton said.

“I look at my horses as my friends and I won’t do that. We won’t ever send them off to be eaten.”

■ For details, 0423 586 384 or see windamerehorsehaven.com