Many people have enjoyed riding at the Springhill Stables in Antigua. As a horse lover it is the only place I would ever ride abroad in the Caribbean. The horses were very well taken care of, the tack fitted and the rides along the Rendezvous beach was great fun. Unfortunately they were scammed - please find below the story in the owners words.

Currently the horses are not in good enough condition to go on rides, so the stables cannot make any money, they have no money to pay for extra food, for employees to clear the fields of poo and care for the animals. They really need our help to get back on their feet. And the poor horses urgently need extra food and vet care.

NOTE - There is a trip adviser site still set up by the scammers where they can book and pay - we are trying to get it shut down - the stables is CURRENTLY CLOSED so anyone trying to book online should not. They are currently in need of money (and free labour if anyone in Antigua has time to go up and help)

'I started the stables as Springhill riding club in 1986 to teach children to ride, having had horses on the island since 1970. They grew and grew and we needed to hire instructor/managers and eventually we were invited to join the FEI as we were sending teams to compete in the Caribbean Equestrian Association, of which we were a cofounder. We also hosted and were very proud of our results. We also had an Olympic dressage rider. Sadly all this took a lot of funding and work, and the CEA grew to 10 islands and it became too expensive to travel or host, so we have slowed down from what we became.

We decided to get an investor and were thrilled when an Irish showjumper and her partner wanted to come and take over. Sadly they turned out to be charming scammers, and must have had a fake CV as they slowly starved the horses of grass and they all lost huge amounts of weight and condition. We could not believe what was happening, and when we finally did, we acted fast in closing down and warning people not to pay them. However we are left with 10 horses to feed and gently school as they recover and will have to be closed for the entire season, which means we will have no income to tide us over the slow months and the debts we were left with and the cheques they bounced in our name have already cost us a small fortune. Any help would be hugely appreciated.

These pictures are now - after the horses have already started recovering but sadly they have a long way to go until they can be ridden and bring in income.

This was the horses before all of this - you can see they were very well fed and cared for.