I have a new job for an Irish IT company who is working on new big service for people who care and for the non-profit organisations and charities. One of the first Polish non-profit charities I have contacted with was the one of the biggest in Europe pounds for horses - “Tara”. The name is rather taken after the story “Gone with the wind”, however it is related to the Tara hill. Irish Tara was the residence of the high king of Ireland, and Polish Tara is a kingdom of horses, usually the old, disabled and bad experienced ones. Horses are usually being bought straight from the slaughter houses, sometimes they are bought from the lorries that are going to Italy. Poland is a land of horses as Ireland, unfortunately many of our horses are breed in bad conditions and then sold to Italy and France for meat. They have to spend the journey in terrible conditions, crowded over limits in the lorries, without water, air and food. Luckily we have people who are devoting all of their time to save those horses from the death in one of the Italian, French or Polish slaughter houses, to save them from the cruelty, starvation etc. In Tara there is over 100 horses placed in the old German grange in the Lower Silesia that used to be a communistic state property farm (like Soviet kolhoz). They have plenty of land, meadows for horses and lots of buildings for stables, but the grange was partly destroyed by the former owner - the company who did nothing to renovate it.
The Pound is maintained by 2 people - married couple - Scarlet (that is her real name) and Peter with help of over 1000 volunteers. The horses are neither for sale nor for ride. They are retired, spending rest of their lives in peace. Horses in Tara reach the age over 30(More info on their website: www.ligon.chorzow.pl/tara)
Here is some photos I took during the visit in Polish Tara:
October 2006, Cliffs Of Moher, co Clare, Ireland. Great rock pillar outlier that survived from the destroying force of Atlantic ocean and wind. The structure of the cliffs consists of layers of shale and sandstone. The rock outlies looks like a head of a woman wearing kind of mourning dress, with the hair sticking up instead of falling down to her arms. Camera: Konica Minolta A1 DiMAge.
April 2006, Ireland, Cashel, Ruins of Hore Abbey - 13th century Cistercian monastery built in the foothill of Rock Of Cashel by the north side of it.. According to Wikipedia Hore Abbey is distinctive among the other Cistercian monasteries in Ireland in that the cloister lies to the north. It is the last founded monastery before the dissolution of the monasteries. Camera: Konica Minolta A1 DiMage.
26 October 2007, Poland, Lower Silesia, Pound for horses - “Tara”, one of the oldest horses in the pound. Pound for horses “Tara” is the biggest in Poland. There are more than 100 horses usually saved from being slaughtered in Italy after spending days being transported from Poland in terrible inhuman conditions. Some horses were bought from the slaughterhouses, some were bought from the people who treated them very bad. In Tara they are spending the rest of their lives in peaceful and very good conditions. Best retirement for every horse. It is very sad, that many of the horses who served human whole of their lives are being sold to the slaughterhouses in Italy or in Poland, sometimes they are racing horses who used to won a lot of medals and made a lot of money for their owners. When they are old they are not needed anymore. Luckily we have people like Scarlet and Peter and thousands of volunteers who are helping them to save our big friends.
Here is the link to their website (available in English, German and Italian, the last one only through Polish version of the website):
http://www.ligon.chorzow.pl/tara/en_index.php
