Charlie Thornycroft, former PA to Khalid Abdullah, is currently running a Polish hub for horses rescued from Ukraine – and for vital veterinary supplies going the other way. She tells Jon Lees about her experiences as part of the relief effort.
Poland: In March this year Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Thornycroft was working on preparations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations when her life suddenly changed.
Russia invaded Ukraine and in an instant created not just a humanitarian crisis but one that engulfed the countr
y’s equine population as well. While Ukraine’s citizens were able to flee over the border to escape the bombardment, getting horses out of the country or simply getting help to them was an altogether different challenge.
Thornycroft contacted the British Equine Federation, keen to explore what she could do to help the relief effort – and ended up running a horse shelter in Rzeszow, the largest city in southeastern Poland about 80km from the border with Ukraine.
Fact-finding mission
“I came out to Poland for three days on a fact-finding mission on March 11 and I seem to still be here,” she explains.
Thornycroft, 39, formerly worked for three years as personal assistant to Khalid Abdullah and Juddmonte chief executive Douglas Erskine-Crum. Renting out her London flat, she resigned from her job as executive assistant and head of hospitality with H Power Event Management to take up an unpaid volunteer’s role at the Rzeszow shelter, which was established by a group of British equine organisations.
It’s a 24-hour day, seven-days-a-week commitment – and already more than 200 horses have come through the hub from Ukraine and over £100,000 in veterinary supplies have been sent in the other direction.
“We are rescuing horses from up and down Ukraine and bringing them here, where we get them back to health and send them onto new destinations across Europe,” Thornycroft explains.
About £1,000 per horse
“It sounds very easy but actually the problem is getting them across the border because they don’t have refugee status and you still need all the same documentation to get any horse from a non-EU to an EU country and that has not been relaxed, despite a huge amount of pressure from Britain on Brussels and Poland.
“So it still costs about £1,000 per horse in fees and takes between 16 and 48 hours to get them across the border. That means not everything can leave, either because of the cost or because they are not up to the journey.”
Rescued horses are collected at two hubs in Ukraine, in Lviv and near Chernobyl, before travelling to Poland, where there is capacity for 64 horses. Donations also arrive at the Polish base to be sent on to Ukraine.
Donations and offers of help have flooded in from all over Europe with Britain’s racing community 
heavily involved. Newmarket trainer Gay Kelleway, for example, is making a second visit to Poland, bringing two horseboxes full of supplies and returning with two horses to drop at destinations in Germany and Ireland.
Boxes have been filled with supplies of feed, bedding, head collars, rugs, vet kits and even fire extinguishers – whatever is needed for Ukrainians to deal with the devastation wrought by the Russian military.
“I sent over 200 fire extinguishers last month because there are no firemen left in Ukraine to put out fires,” says Thornycroft. “Fire is everywhere. You can see it at night.
‘The Russians are slashing horses’
“The Russians are slashing horses and burning the ground and we have evidence of that,” she goes on. “They don’t seem to like anything that lives in Ukraine. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s human, dog, cat or horse.”
Rescue missions are inevitably dangerous yet the five drivers who shuttle down to Dnipro in the south, then back to Lviv and onto Poland haven’t yet been deterred.
“It’s an absolutely dangerous mission,” says Thornycroft. “One of our drivers has a Russian passport. He’s gone missing twice while collecting horses. Thankfully he’s fine now.
“Another got stopped by the Russians, was dragged out of his lorry and beaten up. The horses were turned free, the Russians smashed all the glass in the lorry, cut all the cables and dumped it.
“The driver found his lorry, found the horses and, using a crocodile clip, connected the wires back together and drove another 250km across the border to Poland. Other lorries have bullet or shrapnel marks on them.”
She goes on: “When the horses arrive, they are pretty stressed and distressed. I have a lot of young stallions coming through and they are either completely agoraphobic or claustrophobic.
“We are quite near a military base and anytime a plane goes over, all hell breaks loose for the first few days. Then they settle down, but for a while they are pretty traumatised by any loud bangs or sudden movements.”
‘You have to keep moving’
Horses are drawn from all over Ukraine and, once collected in Dnipro, are driven 13 hours non-stop to Lviv. “You have to keep moving,” says Thornycroft.
“Once they’re in the box, you’ve just got to drive. The roads are terrible and are being blown up all the time, tanks are everywhere. We can’t let the drivers stop – it’s not safe. So standard welfare has to be put to one side to get them from danger to safety.”
The horses are given at least three days to recover from the journey in Lviv before they embark on the final leg of the journey, a 170km trip to the Polish border where there is a 16-48 hour wait for processing. The boxes sometimes arrive not just with horses but pets and people, with harrowing tales to tell; they also need Thornycroft's attention.
Despite her experience of organising events such as the Royal Windsor Horseshow, Thornycroft says she had none of the requisite qualifications for her current role, aside from her equine knowledge gained from hunting and team chasing.
“I’m picking up bits of Polish and Ukrainian but Google translate is a godsend,” she says.
‘I had none of the skills’
“I literally came out to fact-find to see what was happening and what was needed and I’ve stayed. I had none of the skills to run a yard or livery or a humanitarian aid centre or donations depot, all of which I am now doing.”
She explains: “I couldn’t keep watching the news and not do something and I didn’t feel that just sending second-hand clothes and nappies was enough.
“I could go out at short notice so I contacted the British Equestrian Federation offering admin help and from there went to Poland. You could say the job description has changed!”
She continues: “It’s fairly amazing. It’s also unbelievably frustrating with all the paperwork and the time it takes to do anything but you have to keep remembering that if the tables were turned, someone would do the same for your horse or dog.
“It’s 24/7 and my average day is between 18 and 24 hours. If horses leave Lviv on a Monday they would reach here on Wednesday some time between midnight and 4am.
“I need to make sure I am here to meet the lorries, do a basic health check on the horses, give them water, hay, check their microchips against their passports and then settle them down.
“It can take an hour and a half to unload 20 horses and then I have to be back to do morning stables. Then there is admin to do, lorries of donations to unload and reload onto a lorry going to Ukraine, then do the same in the evening. I try to graze or lunge the horses every day so they have some outside time.
“I do it on adrenaline most of the time. I will be exhausted when I go home but until then there isn’t the chance to stop so you keep going.”
‘This is going to be for the long haul’
Thornycroft says the public response has been amazing but believes the rescue effort will continue even after the war is over and cash donations remain urgently needed. “We need money to buy hay locally, pay for blacksmiths and vets when the horses get to us,” she says.
“It’s a cash culture here. A lot of the money is spent on fees to get the horse across but demand will change. Now that the grass is starting to grow here, I’m getting a lot of requests for electric fencing so they can create mini-paddocks. What I’m hearing is that nearly half of farmland in Ukraine has either been ruined by mines or taken back by the government.
“This is going to be for the long haul. Even if the war stops, Ukraine is not going to recover by the winter. These horses will be in much more dire straits because they will have been without proper food and attention since February.”
She adds: “I’m not sure I will still be here then but I hope to still be involved. I couldn’t do this without everybody’s donations and support. The UK and Sweden have been amazing and we have had lorry loads from Germany. It’s very reassuring to know you are making a difference.”
• Contribute to the British Equestians for Ukraine Fund at the World Horse Welfare website and visit the Racing To Help Ukraine website
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