Opponents of the ranch allege this photo shows a malnourished animal at Ace-Hi Credit:Kellie Puddy The property is part of the Ace-Hi Ranch, a popular trail-riding company near Boneo. Inspectors and locals descended on the property on Wednesday, checking on the health of a large number of horses. A spokeswoman said the agency was continuing its investigations. Locals and former staff claim horses are underfed, injured and overworked.

An allegedly-malnourished horse at Ace-Hi Credit:Kellie Puddy Kellie Puddy, a former manager at Ace-Hi, and Bree Craddock, who also worked there in the past, both told Fairfax they had been forced to underfeed horses. Ms Puddy said the owners supplied only enough food to feed two or three horses a week, when more than 60 were on the property. Other sources say staff were often prohibited from feeding malnourished horses. The horses were kept in dirt paddocks during the winter, with no grass to graze on, Ms Puddy said. "The owners promised every week they would get more feed in, but they never did.

"It was never enough. I was only given about $250 a week to feed them all – that's what you feed two horses a week. And those horses are working every day, they needed to be fed a lot. "How do they get away with it? Every time, the RSPCA comes out, and then that's it." Said another person who worked on the farm: "The RSPCA does not have enough balls. They need to shut the place down" Ms Puddy says she was forced to spend her own money to feed the horses because the owners would not pay for more feed. She eventually resigned in March 2015 after watching another malnourished horse be put down.

Kellie Puddy says she was forced to underfeed horses when she worked as a manager at the property. Credit:Justin McManus Ace-Hi's owner Ron Neary said the RSPCA had told him the horses were in good condition and no charges would be laid. "There is been a social media attack on us for quite some time now, by a couple of people who used to work here and don't much like us. "The RSPCA checked our spending in the last 12 months on vets and food. "They are in touch with our vets and food suppliers to make sure they are not made-up figures.

They made it clear to us they had no intention of taking any horses off the property, and they weren't going to be charging us with cruelty and neglect." Mr Neary said the horses were in "moderate" rather than good condition. He said this was because drought had cleaned much of the grass out of the ranch's paddocks. He said he would not increase the horses' dry feed to compensate because of the dangers of giving the animals too much protein. Ace-Hi owner Ron Neary with horses deemed to be in "moderate" condition. Credit:Justin McManus