The birth of Brooke
After the war ended, stories of abandoned war horses reached Britain and one lady, Dorothy Brooke, decided to take action. On arrival in Egypt in 1930, she set out to find the surviving war horses of the British, Australian and American forces. These brave and noble horses were sold into a life of hard labour in Cairo when fighting ended. Dorothy was shocked to find hundreds of emaciated and worn-out animals in desperate need of help. She wrote a letter to the Morning Post (now the Daily Telegraph) exposing their plight and appealing to the British public to help. People were so moved that they sent Dorothy the equivalent of £20,000 in today’s money to help end the horses’ suffering. Over the space of three years, Dorothy Brooke purchased 5,000 former war horses. Most were old, exhausted and had to be humanely put down. But thanks to her compassion, they ended their lives peacefully. Despite her heroic efforts, Dorothy knew thousands of horses, donkeys and mules were still suffering. She founded the Old War Horse Memorial Hospital in Cairo in 1934, offering free veterinary care to all the city’s working horses and donkeys. The Brooke Hospital for Animals was born.