WILD HORSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24400, 11 September 1940, Page 12

WILD HORSES

SUGGESTED FOR ARMY MOUNTS GREAT MOBS IN AUSTRALIA (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. Aug. 17. Army remount purchasing officers having repeatedly admitted difficulty in acquiring suitable horses for defence work, it is suggested that expeditions should be organised to capture some of the great mobs of wild horses which roam some parts of Central Australia.

Mr Fred Blakeley, who has had long experience of “The Centre” and who originated the proposal, said: .“Australia has a reserve of horses about which the average man knows nothing —horses of a type which would be hard to beat for remount work, great stayers, and as sure-footed as goats. I have seen many of these horses used for stock work on outback stations and in droving plants, and know something of their great staying powers.” Out in Central Australia, west of Alice Springs, in a stretch of country known as the spring belt, there is an extensive chain of open water holes, and in that country there are many thousands of wild horses of an admirable type. “On my trip out with the Lasseter expedition,” said Mr Blakeley, “ I saw many signs that the wild horses were there in great numbers. I had a good look at a stallion and six mares, and a splendid lot they were. Old stockmen tell me that the wild horses are evenly distributed throughout this spring belt area. There can be no doubt about the quality of these horses. Many were captured about 400 miles south in the last war, and used in Egypt for remount work. These horses from the sandhills and plains outstayed every other horse used in Egypt, so they have been well tried. I think 500 of them could be captured at small cost.” Mr Blakeley said that these wild horses, or “ brumbies,” as they are called in Australia, are great doers. “ They can get a feed almost anywhere,” he said. “Even dried gum leaves are not turned down when they are hard pushed for feed. If the Government sent out 300 or 400 good stockmen, with as many old brumby-hunters as possible, - great numbers of horses could be added to our transport re-, serves. The leaders of these hunters would have to be drawn from men who have earned their living at the game, for it is the first contact with man that makes a good horse or an impossible one out of the brumbies.”