Hey! So here is our little story of Gigi our clubfoot cobby that we are really hoping we can raise some funds towards her medical expenses & care to get her back to being comfortable! We have now established Gigi has a grade 4 club foot! Please have a look at the new photos!

Back in January we purchased Gigi, a 13h, rising 6yr old Blagdon cob mare and it was clear she was lame coming off the box, we knew we weren't going to be expecting a great condition of the mare but we had hoped for better. After a day of rest when Gigi had arrived we started to look a little more into why she was so uncomfortable and we found her hooves were around 5/6 inches too long, we had our farrier come out to her as soon as he could but it was very obvious Gigi had a deformed hoof on her left hand side. When our farrier got to us, it was explained she had a club foot, now usually this is something very manageable if cared for and managed from birth or the instance you notice this. Sadly it seems this has never at all been managed until coming to us.

With the help of our farrier we had several appointments to help Gigi realign her hoof and we could see some progression if only small, it was there. We had also noticed she was more jumpy on one side than the other so we called the vet out to come and check her eyesight, we found a congenital eye defect where her pupil was a irregular shape making it difficult from her to see as a usual horse would from one side.

Fast forward a few months and working on trying to get the hoof as best as we could, with the summers months and dry spring on us, we found Gigi struggling with the hard grounds and the more limited turnout we had at the time, I decided it might be best to find Gigi a home where she would be happier with more level ground and more suitable facilities for her condition. Her advert stated all her conditions and how she would be mechanically lame until the foot was realigned and it would need regular 4 weekly trims if not 3 weekly. What i thought was the perfect home for Gigi unfortunately didn't go to plan. Gigi was sold for a fraction of the price she was bought for and the only reason we were letting her go was in her best interest in finding a home more suited to her.

They thought Gigi was in foal as she had dropped in her stomach and her teats had started to bag, I offered to buy her back and bring her home but before I could transport her I needed to have her scanned to see when and if she would be foaling as if too close to a foaling date it is unsafe to travel the mare & foal. I arranged the scan with a local vet as she was around 4 hours away from me, to only be told they had part exchanged her for another horse as they had apparently had her scanned themselves and she wasn't in foal. I wasn't allowed to know where she went and they wouldn't pass on the details.

We thought we would never see her again, we searched posts and posts to find out where she had been sold to! This was all in June.

28th August a friend of mine, ( yard owner), found an advert that looked and sounded exactly like Gigi, I immediately got in touch and offered to buy her back... She had ended up with another dealer who had bought her from an auction, so we have worked out from June - September she has had a minimum of 3 homes where she has been sold on again and again, We drove 9 hours on the 2nd of Sept to go and collect her and bring her home.

On bringing her home you could instantly see that the hoof had got worse and worse and has not been managed at all and we assume lied about to sell her and nobody had known!

So now we are really really hoping for a little help from you all so we can have Gigi x-rayed and have her foot fully realigned with the combined help of the vets & farrier as it is going to be a very long journey with her and an insurance company will not help as it is pre-existing. We had no idea how long this could take but we will be hugely grateful for anything that helps go towards her!

Gigi will stay with us no matter what now as we cannot let her keep being passed around and someone being so dishonest about her, even though she has been through so much in her time she is still such a sweet little mare who gives you the best whinny in the mornings and even though so many humans have shown her the worst possible ways she is so kind and genuine and has a huge heart. We are hoping to be able to have Gigi as one of our therapy ponies.

Please help to get Gigi all the help we can get her! Thank you!