Common questions about The Horse Trust's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is The Horse Trust a good charity? +
The Horse Trust scores 73 out of 100 (3 stars — Needs improvement) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 89% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are late. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.
Is The Horse Trust a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists The Horse Trust as a registered charity (charity number 231748). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=231748&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.
What is The Horse Trust's charity number? +
The Horse Trust's charity number is 231748. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.
What is The Horse Trust's charity rating? +
The Horse Trust scores 73 out of 100 on CharityCompare (3 stars — Needs improvement). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.
Does The Horse Trust have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for The Horse Trust. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (2 red flags on this profile: late accounts filing; poor filing history). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.
How much of my donation reaches The Horse Trust? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 89% of The Horse Trust's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.
What are The Horse Trust's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 11% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 13% of expenditure (2022–2024, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at The Horse Trust. The Horse Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 7 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £120,001–£130,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does The Horse Trust receive? +
The Horse Trust reported £2.7m total income in its 2024 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: growing.
Are The Horse Trust's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: late (last filing 2025-10-07). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is The Horse Trust based? +
The Horse Trust's register entry is at United Kingdom. It tells the regulator it operates in England and Wales, with a focus on animals.
How much is The Horse Trust's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. The Horse Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 7 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £120,001–£130,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.
Where does The Horse Trust's money come from? +
The Horse Trust reported £2.3m total income for the year ending 31 December 2025. The largest sources were donations and legacies £1.9m (80%), investments £260k (11%), other income £110k (5%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £1.1m.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to The Horse Trust? +
The register records The Horse Trust as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.
Are The Horse Trust's trustees paid? +
The Horse Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
What was The Horse Trust previously called? +
The register lists this previous name for The Horse Trust: The Home of Rest for Horses.
When was The Horse Trust registered as a charity? +
The Horse Trust was entered on the register on 29 June 1964. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 00347417).
How does CharityCompare score The Horse Trust? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in The Horse Trust's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.
How often is this page updated? +
This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and The Horse Trust's most recent accounts cover 2024. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.