Five years ago, Big Grey was little more than skin and bone - one of 23 emaciated horses found alongside the carcasses of more than 20 others on a property on Melbourne's outskirts who became known as the Bulla horses.
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Big Grey and his fellow survivors needed specialist care and the RSPCA called on Anne Young to take the group in to her Horse Shepherd Equine Sanctuary at Gordon.
On arrival their rehabilitation began and their lives immediately took a turn for the better.
All but six of the Bulla horses that came in to Ms Young's care have found new homes and those still at the sanctuary will always have a home there among the menagerie of animals.
The Bulla horses are among about 100 horses on the 300 acre property which they share with deer, goats, sheep, alpacas, lamas, turkeys, peacocks, geese and chickens.
On Saturday members of the public can meet the residents of HSES during an open day, which will also raise vital funds for feed and animal care.
Uniquely, visitors have the choice of how much admission to pay when they book a ticket online.
"Normally we don't have tickets and we make it free, but like all charities COVID has not been kind to us," Ms Young said. "The tickets vary in price depending on what you want to pay. We didn't want to exclude anyone who had a difficult year and we couldn't decide what was a fair price ... so there are tickets from $4 to $25."
Coming in to winter is the most expensive time of year.
Ms Young works on an average monthly feed bill for the animals of $6000, but it can go as high as $10,000.
She also sees more people needing help or wanting to surrender horses coming in to winter.
In a bid to help the sanctuary raise its own funds, Ms Young has also built a Eureka Gold Trail equine obstacle course which serves two purposes - to help build the confidence of sanctuary horses and for riders to bring their own horses for some obstacle fun.
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It has a suspension bridge, a bridge over a dam to an island, flags, tyres, gates and other obstacles for horses to tackle.
"We'll be opening it for clinics and riders to come along. We are always looking for ways to be sustainable without having to ask for donations all the time," she said.
Visitors to the open day will also be able to take sanctuary ponies around the course.
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