Author: Laura Breen

Within the last two decades, the fortunes of Australia’s working draught horses have undergone something of a revival. Once the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s most abundant source of haulage muscle, the use of larger breeds declined during the 1950s as Australians embraced motorised power. However, as our team found out during a recent jaunt to Woo back, held in Yass, NSW, Australian heavy horse owners have been quietly nurturing...

‘I empower my said Trustees…to construct and erect and pay for Horse-Troughs wherever they may be of opinion that such horse troughs are necessary or desirable for the relief of horses or other dumb animals either in Australasia in the British Islands or in any other part of the World’. George Bills’ last Will, 1925 If Melbourne wire mattress manufacturer George ‘Joe’ Bills had his posthumous way, no horse would ever again go...

There’s a new horsey face to be seen around our Mitchell repository this week. This champion racehorse is a bright chestnut with polished hooves, silky mane and tail and something of a beady-eyed stare. Though unrivalled on the track, he’s a diminutive fellow at not quite two hands high. ‘Jackson’ arrived recently from Birdsville, a small Queensland town some 1600km west of Brisbane and the scene of his trackside triumph.

Though at times exhausting, the events of last week have reminded me just why I love my job so much. My talented film-maker colleague, Jeremy Lucas, and I have just returned, footsore and triumphant, from an epic four days of filming in Melbourne and regional Victoria. As part of the Museum’s current Horses in Australia project, we’re working on a short documentary film to be produced in-house. The film will...