Saving the Snowy Brumbies

by Kelly Wilson

  HAVING TAMED KAIMANAWAS IN NEW ZEALAND AND MUSTANGS IN AMERICA, VICKI, KELLY AND AMANDA WILSON TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA FOR THEIR LATEST WILD HORSE ADVENTURE.

  Each year thousands of Australia’s legendary Brumbies are aerially culled or captured and sold for slaughter to manage the world’s largest population of wild horses. When the Wilson sisters hear of government plans to cull 90 per cent of the Snowy Mountain Brumbies, they eagerly sign up for the Australian Brumby Challenge to learn more about these iconic horses’ desperate plight.

  Assigned ponies so small that even the slaughterhouses have rejected them, Vicki, Kelly and Amanda realise their Brumbies’ future lies with much younger riders. Will these Brumbies embrace the many changes ahead of them, and can the sisters find children they trust to ride recently wild ponies?

  FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BEST-SELLING BOOKS

  For the Love of Horses, Stallion Challenges and Mustang Ride.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: Living Legends

  Chapter 1: Wild Ride

  Chapter 2: High Alert

  Chapter 3: Brumby-run?

  Chapter 4: Slow and Steady

  Chapter 5: Baby Brumbies

  Chapter 6: Bringing in the Reserves

  Chapter 7: Riding in Search of Wild Horses

  Chapter 8: Many Hands Make Light Work

  Chapter 9: Snowy Mountain Brumbies

  Chapter 10: Saved from Slaughter

  Chapter 11: Homeward Bound on a Cargo Plane

  Chapter 12: In the Winterless North

  Chapter 13: Camp Chaos

  Chapter 14: The Power of Three

  Chapter 15: Snowstorms and Silver Brumbies

  Chapter 16: Protests at Parliament

  Chapter 17: From Wild Brumbies to Kids’ Ponies

  Chapter 18: Wild Adventure

  Chapter 19: Final Preparations

  Chapter 20: Future Focus

  Chapter 21: Battle of the Breeds

  Chapter 22: Olympic Dreams

  Chapter 23: The Passing of a Legend

  Chapter 24: Australian Brumby Challenge

  Epilogue: Passing on the Baton

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin Random House

  This book is dedicated to the team at Isuzu Utes New Zealand, especially Murray, Gareth and Howard — thank you for your belief in us and for supporting our passions. You have become like family over the past two years and we can’t thank you enough for understanding the compassion we have for wild horses, and for helping us to give them a voice. We hope that our journey with these horses inspires others to champion their cause and that instead of being seen as unwanted and unworthy by so many they will be recognised for their true worth. Without you, our work with the Brumbies couldn’t have happened, so from the bottom of our hearts — thank you.

  A silver roan stallion, the morning after a blizzard.

  A kangaroo near a Brumby trap site in the Snowy Mountains.

  INTRODUCTION

  Living Legends

  A herd of roan Brumbies near Long Plain Road in Kosciuszko National Park.

  The history of the Brumbies, like that of all wild horses, it seems, is one of many contrasts. Once revered for their hardiness and embraced as a necessary part of Australia’s high country, today these wild horses are in equal parts loved and hated. For many they are a symbol of the pioneering spirit of Australia, but for others they are little more than pests, damaging a delicate ecosystem that has not evolved to cope with being populated by so many horses.

  The three of us — me and my sisters, Vicki and Amanda Wilson — have always been passionate about horses. Born and brought up in the upper North Island of New Zealand, we grew up reading the Silver Brumby series and watching the The Man from Snowy River — the Brumbies we read about were our first exposure to wild horses. As children we often pretended to be Brumbies, and would spend hours cantering around our yards at home, pretending to tame each other, or hiding from humans in the rock formations on neighbouring farmland — imagining we were in the Silver Brumbies’ hidden canyon deep in the heart of the Snowy Mountains.

  There wasn’t a lot of spare money around when we were growing up, but our parents always supported us in our desire to own and train horses. When we were aged four (Amanda), seven (me) and nine (Vicki), we captured and tamed our very first wild ponies. The oldest of these were a palomino and a chestnut — we would often pretend that they were Thowra and Yarraman, the two most iconic stallions from the Silver Brumby stories. These books, which were written from the horses’ point of view, gave us an appreciation of how scary each new situation must be for our own wild horses, and we strove to befriend them rather than forcing them into submission. Those early years working with young and feral horses gave us many of the skills we needed to succeed. From an early age we trained and competed ponies and horses in local competitions, progressing to showjumping on the New Zealand circuit with success at the highest levels. In between events we began to host camps and clinics on location and at our home property, Showtym Stables, teaching over 1000 riders a year, as well as breeding and training horses for both ourselves and others. Of the three of us, Vicki was (and still is) the most solely focused on her equestrian pursuits, having represented New Zealand a number of times in showjumping competitions. In 2016, while we were in Australia for the Brumby Challenge, Vicki was invited to compete in Road to the Horse — the World Championships of Colt Starting — which she won in convincing style, gaining her international recognition for her holistic approach to horsemanship. Amanda, while just as successful as Vicki in the competition arena, became equally as passionate about film and writing; and when I was not riding, writing or photographing, I would spend as much time as possible travelling and adventuring.

  A herd of wild Brumbies near Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains.

  Amanda, me and Vicki with some of our favourite showjumpers.

  Our work with truly wild horses began in 2012, when Watch Me Move, a showjumping pony that we had initially bought and trained, won the biggest Pony Grand Prix event in the Southern Hemisphere. When we purchased Watch Me Move we were told he had been born wild in some of the most rugged mountains of New Zealand — the Kaimanawa Ranges. Following his win, his rider, Tegan Newman, and the three of us were invited down to the Kaimanawa Ranges by Kaimanawa Heritage Horses (who advocate for the welfare and care of the Kaimanawas) to view the herds in the wild. For the first time we became aware of the plight of our nation’s wild horses.

  Over the previous 20 years, thousands of horses had been culled in an effort to reduce the population from 2000 and thereby protect the sensitive ecological area where the wild horses lived; by the time we became involved, the culling was maintained through musters every second year to keep the population at about 300. Because of negative stereotyping and a massive lack of public awareness surrounding the Kaimanawas, most of the mustered horses were being sent to slaughter. Hoping that we could do something to help, we saved 11 horses from the 2012 muster and documented their journey to domestication. I wrote a book, For the Love of Horses, about our own journey to become showjumpers, trainers and, eventually, tamers of wild Kaimanawas, which became a best-seller.

  In 2013, following my twin passions for horses and photography, I spent some time photographing Walers and Brumbies in Australia, and visited the Victorian Brumby Association to see first-hand many of the Brumbies they had saved from slaughter. Having tamed our first Kaimanawas just 10 months before, all three of us were personally invested in and passionate about the plight of wild horses in our home country — and seeing the Australian equivalent opened my eyes to the plight of wild horses on an international scale.

  Vicki and h
er previously untouched Quarter Horse colt, Kentucky, after three hours of training over three days, during the prize-giving for Road to the Horse 2017 — the World Championships of Colt Starting, held in Kentucky, USA.

  Another three years passed before we again crossed paths with the Australian Brumbies. During this time so much had changed in our lives. Our focus during the competition season was on our showjumpers, with Vicki and Amanda competing to World Cup level on their most successful horses Showtym Cassanova, Showtym Cadet MVNZ and Ngahiwi Showtym Premier. During the winter months our work with wild horses continued — in 2014 we saved another 12 Kaimanawas from that year’s muster, and our work taming them featured in the hit television show Keeping Up With The Kaimanawas and my second book, Stallion Challenges. While every wild horse that we work with holds a special place in our hearts, there were two Kaimanawas in particular that became an integral part of our family: Argo, a young stallion trained by Vicki, and the veteran stallion Elder, who was the most challenging of any wild horse we have tamed. While Argo was ridden for the first time just eight days out of the wild, it took more than 500 days for Elder to reach the same milestone — something that we achieved through endless patience and trust, rather than force, in an effort to produce happy horses that enjoy their lives with us.

  Through our work with New Zealand’s wild Kaimanawas, in 2015 we were invited to compete in the prestigious Extreme Mustang Makeover in America. Along with Alexa and Kirsty (two of the girls who worked with us taming horses, showjumping and managing our busy lives), we spent three months taming 11 wild Mustangs and taking them on a 5000-kilometre road trip around the Wild West. Out of this came another documentary, filmed and produced by Amanda, and another best-selling book, Mustang Ride, written by me.

  Amanda and Showtym Cassanova competing in the New Zealand World Cup Finals.

  Vicki and Argo, her very special Kaimanawa stallion who was mustered from the wild in 2014 as part of the biennial government culls.

  Somehow we had gone from being passionate people with a love of horses to being role models with a purpose — giving wild horses a voice, especially the tens of thousands that face either captivity or death when their freedom is taken from them at the hands of humans. Our work with wild horses had taken a global turn, and with every adventure our interest in them grew. Late in 2015, a phone call from the Victorian Brumby Association gave us pause. The Brumbies were in dire trouble and the association wanted to know if we would be interested in learning more about their plight — and also training some wild Brumbies as part of the Australian Brumby Challenge. The event was very similar to the Extreme Mustang Makeover and our home-grown Kaimanawa Stallion Challenges: in the Australian version of the challenge, trainers have 150 days to train a wild Brumby before competing at Equitana (a major event on the Australian equestrian calendar). Started by the Victorian Brumby Association (VBA) in 2014, the challenge was designed to showcase the trainability of wild Brumbies in front of 40,000 people, and raise awareness about their plight, before the horses were sold off by public auction at the event.

  Intrigued, we started asking questions, and quickly discovered that the Brumbies’ situation was even worse than that of their American and New Zealand counterparts. Australia has a huge number of horses roaming wild, resulting in large numbers being culled every year. Because of our success in bringing the plight of other wild horses to the attention of the public and, in New Zealand, increasing re-homing numbers to the point where every Kaimanawa suitable for re-homing was saved from the 2016 muster, the VBA hoped that our involvement would generate additional publicity for the Brumbies, who were in desperate need of champions.

  From the moment we turned our attention to Australia’s wild horses, we began learning as much as we could. As with the Kaimanawas and Mustangs before we became involved with them, we knew little about these living legends — apart from there being a lot of them. When we began digging deeper, we discovered just how many wild horses there were in Australia, and how many were being culled each year. The numbers were staggering. New Zealand’s population of Kaimanawas is kept at about 300 by a biennial muster, with 150 or so looking for homes every two years. In America, 45,000 Mustangs roam wild and about 50,000 are captive in holding yards, in need of an immediate solution. But in Australia, an estimated 400,000 to 1 million Brumbies roam wild, and well over 100,000 are culled each year. Worse, rather than being rounded up for re-homing, almost all of the Brumbies are either aerially culled (shot from helicopters) or sent to slaughter after mustering or trapping, an unsustainable solution that barely controls their numbers.

  What shocked us most were some of the ways in which the culling was done. Many of the old-fashioned culling and capturing methods that we’d read about in old-fashioned books as children were not a thing of the past — they were still very much happening in Australia. In some areas, Brumbies were still being trapped by the hundreds, lassoed and chased on horseback, broncoed to exhaustion like rodeo steeds, hunted with bow and arrows, or shot from helicopters by the thousands. To top things off, just recently the New South Wales government had proposed culling 90 per cent of the wild horses in the Snowy Mountains through the use of ground shooting, where the horses would be culled by people on foot and the carcasses left to rot where they fall.

  Without going to Australia, we couldn’t be sure whether our research was more fiction or fact, so we decided to take up the invitation. Keeping our minds open in the hope that the situation wasn’t as bad as it seemed, we began organising both the time and the funding to make it possible. The networks that had aired Keeping Up With The Kaimanawas on both sides of the Tasman to over half a million viewers were interested in a second season, this time following our work with the Brumbies. This was excellent news — media coverage on mainstream television throughout New Zealand and Australia, along with a book that I’d write, had every chance of enabling the Brumbies to gain the love of the Australian public, much like Kiwis had embraced our own Kaimanawas. We couldn’t wait for our adventures with the Brumbies to begin.

  CHAPTER 1

  Wild Ride

  Performing in front of 4000 people during Riding with the Stars.

  Alexa and Showtym Cadet MVNZ during the war scene of Riding with the Stars.

  Kirsty riding Showtym Spotlight as Pegasus during the opening act.

  Our work with the Brumbies, and the ripple effects that it led to, almost never happened. In those final months before we left New Zealand, we were frantically busy with the showjumping season along with writing scripts and training horses to create a theatrical show depicting our history of taming wild horses — and nearly everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

  Just a few months before we were due to leave for Australia — and just an hour before we were due to perform our show in front of a sold-out stadium of 4000 people — Vicki was knocked over by a horse in our final practice. Badly concussed and barely conscious, Vicki was rushed to hospital. We were thrown into crisis mode, with the organisers frantically trying to work out a way to cancel the show without upsetting the thousands of spectators. Flustered but sure we could still pull off a good show, Amanda, Alexa and I banded together and quickly reassigned the various roles. Alexa would play Vicki, and Amanda and I would share the roles in those scenes where Alexa had originally featured. Fortunately, Alexa had helped me write the original script and knew all the lines. With just an hour to go to curtain-raise, we reshuffled all the scenes and learnt the riding routines we would need. I would ride Vicki’s World Cup showjumper Showtym Cadet MVNZ in a formation ride during a war scene, Alexa would be cueing horses to rear and lie down, Amanda would be riding Vicki’s Kaimanawa, Argo, in a scene involving working bareback and bridleless, and Kirsty would ride Showtym Spotlight to open the show. Our biggest problem was that the horses had only been trained by Vicki — and with no time left to practise we weren’t sure how well it would all work.

  Luckily the show was a huge hit; although some of the horses
got confused by being handled and ridden by someone new, everything else went better than we could have dreamed. Vicki even made it back in time to get a photo with the crew, although she looked a little the worse for wear. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and people lined up for hours to meet us after the show; we were even asked to take it on a nationwide tour and seriously considered doing just that, as we felt that Vicki had missed out on the experience of a lifetime. It had been an incredible thing to be a part of. Most importantly, the night had highlighted how special New Zealand’s wild horses were and paid tribute to the special Kaimanawas that had sparked our own journey with them.

  The next few weeks were hard on Vicki: along with days of memory loss, her head injury gave her debilitating headaches, and it was a long time before she felt ready to ride again. We knew she was in a bad way when she voluntarily decided to miss the New Zealand Horse of the Year show, especially during what had been a hugely successful season for her. Amanda represented the family, finishing second on Showtym Cassanova in the Olympic Cup, the most prestigious event of the year. She used the prize money to be reunited with Bragg, her favourite American Mustang, whom she brought over from America.

  Then, just days after the competition, we received bad news from the local television network: insufficient funding had come through for the second TV series, partly because of the lack of New Zealand content, and they were forced to drop the show. Without television our work with the Brumbies would reach significantly fewer people, but we were still determined to raise awareness of the horses’ plight. Confident that in this digital age a web series could be even more successful than a TV series, as it would allow ready access for people from every corner of the globe, we strove to get the funding needed for a production team to follow our progress. Unfortunately, our efforts were entirely unsuccessful, and just a week before we were due to leave for Australia we had to sit down and contemplate our options.