Designed by Joseph Whitehead, the life-sized bronze memorial features a kneeling soldier presenting a bucket of water to a service horse.

[3] One of the principal reasons for Port Elizabeth taking such an interest in the movement, which started in 1901, was the fact that most of the horses brought to this country were landed there.

A ladies committee was formed with Mrs Harriet Meyer as president and £800 was collected for Messrs Whitehead and Sons, of Kennington and Westminster, to erect the statue.

The design as a whole is an object lesson in kindness, and may appeal to the cruel or careless driver, and teach him that there are some who do not think it beneath them to attend to the wants of animals placed under their charge.

...consisting of life-sized bronze figures of a horse about to quench its thirst from a bucket held by a kneeling soldier, together with the inscribed granite plinth on which it stands and the base of which incorporates a drinking trough.The inscription on the base reads:THE GREATNESS OF A NATIONCONSISTS NOT SO MUCH IN THE NUMBER OF ITS PEOPLEOR THE EXTENT OF ITS TERRITORYAS IN THE EXTENT AND JUSTICE OF ITS COMPASSIONERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTIONIN RECOGNITION OF THE SERVICES OF THE GALLANT ANIMALSWHICH PERISHED IN THE ANGLO BOER WAR 1899–1902 On 6 April 2015, the memorial was vandalised by a group of men associated with the far left Economic Freedom Fighters.