About Us
Our chairman writes...
All charities depend upon the generosity of their supporters and volunteers both financially and in achieving their charitable objectives. At Moorcroft this is certainly the case, but as important is the hard-working, caring team of girls at the yard who, under the sure guidance of our manager Mary Henley-Smith, consistently operate to the highest standards at all times. Their contribution enables our charity to re-home some forty horses each year after they have been re-trained for a life after racing.
As a result of generous legacies and donations from our supporters, we have, in the last two years, been able to bring our facilities up to a very high standard. In particular, we have built an indoor school and a hay storage barn and have been able to replace our twenty year old horsebox with a three horse Betfair sponsored box. We are most grateful to all these benefactors who help sustain our worthwhile charity.
Mary Henley-Smith BHSII & BHS.SM
Born in Dublin , Ireland and started working life at the age of 18 as a member of the accounts Department for Aer Lingus in Dublin Airport . She started riding as a hobby at the age of 20 and took to it straight away. After 3 years with Aer Lingus she took 6 months unpaid leave to spend time training with Iris Kellet, Irelands leading show jump trainer to gain some equine qualifications. She achieved her BHSAI and returned to the office job with Aer Lingus but within 6 months had found a job in the Uk managing a large London Riding school where she had 40 horses to care for and 14 staff to deal with! After that she moved to a large BHS training centre in Gloucestershire and followed her passion for teaching and training horses, where she excelled particularly in training students for BHS exams but also backing and breaking young horses.
After that she spent time out in Switzerland working for a top Olympic dressage rider and running a very busy dealing yard for him where horses were sold abroad for vast sums of money. She learned a lot about training dressage horses and a lot about how not to do it also!! The experience was invaluable and has made a marked impression on her career.
She has been re-training ex-racehorses at Moorcroft now for over 4 years and the results speak for themselves.
Tim Fox - Chairman and Treasurer
Tim, who succeeded Brough Scott as Chairman in 2007, is the son of a farmer and has lived amongst animals all his life. Born and brought up on a dairy farm Tim was closely involved with the dairy herd in Somerset whilst taking up accountancy articles in Bristol. Upon qualifying he moved to Cooper Brothers in London to gain further experience of the business world. In his words his “lucky break” came in 1984 when the senior partner of Coopers asked him to set up his agricultural and bloodstock specialist department to give all aspects of financial advice to the participants in those industries.
This turned out to be an inspired move as in the ensuing 20 years his practice became the pre-eminent provider of accountancy, audit, VAT, tax and business advice to many of the principal operators particularly in the racing and bloodstock industry. The client list read like a Who’s Who of the bloodstock world, including some forty studs, major racecourses and leading owners and trainers.
Tim puts into practice at home the principles he recommends to his clients as he farms a 70 acre smallholding at Loxwood, some 10 miles from Moorcroft.
"It’s horses for courses at Moorcroft" says Tim in that the whole team has a background in and an empathy for horses, which is fundamental to the operation and success of the charity.