Cape Town still runs on working horses

What happens at the yard

Four things, most weeks of the year, and none of it costs a carter anything.

Cart horses

Most of the work is feet. A carter brings his horse in, we rasp and shoe, look at the teeth and check the shoulders for harness sores, and the horse walks home the same afternoon.

Working donkeys

Donkeys pull the lighter loads around Philippi and get the least attention. We rebuild collars and breeching so the weight sits on the chest and not on the windpipe, and swap wire traces for leather.

The mobile clinic

The bakkie goes out on Tuesdays and Thursdays to Delft, Philippi and Blikkiesdorp with a vet, a farrier and a bale of lucerne on the back. If a horse cannot walk to us, we go to it.

The retirement paddock

Horses too old to pull graze on leased ground outside Kraaifontein. They stay their owner's horse, the owners visit, and we send a photograph whenever somebody phones to ask after one.

A Tuesday on the Delft round

Filmed in March off the dash of the bakkie. No music, because there was none.

How the yard started

I bought my first horse off a scrap cart on Voortrekker Road in 1998 for six hundred rand, because his hooves had grown over like slippers and I could not drive past him a second time. It was the wrong thing to do. The man who sold him to me needed that cart to eat, and by the Friday he had another horse standing in the same harness in the same state. Buying horses out of Epping does not save horses. It only moves them along. So we do the opposite now. The carters bring their own animals in and take them home again, and I have known some of these men for twenty years. For the first four years I rasped feet on a borrowed stand behind my mother's house in Elsies River. The yard on Gunners Circle came in 2011, with a shed, a wash bay and a gate wide enough for a cart to turn in. I am Marlize Abrahams and I am still here most mornings by six.

Where the yard is

Tuig Werksdierehulp 14 Gunners Circle, Epping Industria 2, Cape Town

Coming off Voortrekker Road, turn at the Shell and follow the wall until you see the blue gate. There is room to outspan and tie up inside the gate. Please do not stand a cart on Gunners Circle itself, the trucks come round that corner fast.

021 534 0118 · yard@tuig.org.za

When the gate is open

Monday to Friday, 06:30 to 16:00. Saturday, 06:30 to 12:00 — farrier morning, walk in, no appointment. Sunday closed, except for a call-out.

A horse down in the road is an emergency at any hour. Phone 082 447 6019 and somebody answers, or gets to you within the hour if they are already out on the round.

Six from the last month

Who you will find here

Marlize AbrahamsFounder and farrier

Started the yard with one horse and a borrowed rasp. Still shoes on a Saturday morning and drives the Delft round herself whenever the bakkie is short a driver.

Dr Sipho MnguniVeterinarian

In practice in Bellville for eleven years and with us two days a week. Does the dentistry, the wounds, and the calls nobody else wants at half past nine at night.

Ashwin FortuinHarness and cart repair

Grew up on a cart in Valhalla Park. Rebuilds collars, breeching and traces in the shed behind the paddock, and will tell a man straight when his cart is past fixing.

Nomsa DlaminiYard manager

Keeps the book of every animal that has come through the gate since 2011, orders the lucerne, and is the voice on the emergency phone after hours.

Nobody is asked to give up a horse to get help here

Get involved

The gate hours and the yard address are further up the page. If a horse is down in the road right now, phone us instead of filling this in.