Mt Weld Elora

      "My Beautiful! My beautiful! that standest meekly by

with thy proudly-arch'd and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye..."

     {Caroline Norton (1808-1877), Irish writer}

As a number of you will have read about in "past projects", the Mt Weld heritage horses were identified and rescued by OHHAWA member Rob Forster and his son, with the help of close friends. These horses were taken off Barrick Gold mining company's purchased station in the Goldfields. The mining company helped in the humane removal of the horses, which were reputedly originally sold as remounts and also included old bloodline stock from a couple of neighbouring stations.

The main background breeds were thought to be British pony, Thoroughbred, Clydesdale, Arab and possibly Percheron. Sizes ranged from 14.3 – 15.2hh, and colours included true blacks, bays and browns. The true blacks in the group, due to the combination of breeds involved, resemble small Friesians.

The rescued horses were trucked to Rob’s property near Perth, where the majority were fed up, tamed down and sorted. Some of the horses were kept for a core breeding group. "Elora" (named after a road on the station) was a skinny little 10 month old filly when she arrived in Nannup in December/January 2007…

Elora had come straight from the station and had been bitten and kicked by the Gunnadorrah horses she shared a truck with to Nannup, because she was not “one of them”. Elora was nervous and wild but was handled well from the start by her rescuers. She also did not have some of the bad memories of humans like the Gunnadorrah horses. As a result she tamed down much quicker and got down to the serious business of eating and settling in…

Although she will probably only mature around 14.1hh, and as it will be a few years yet before Elora can get into serious work, she will spend the time learning and growing at her home in Nannup. She moves beautifully and loves climbing hills and galloping around her owner's rocky dam!

So far, we have only met a few heritage horses that really love the water – Elora is one of those. Although from a very dry area, the first time this water baby saw a big dam, she walked straight down to it, pawed the water for a bit and then laid down! Some wild horses – like the Earaheedys – will hardly even get their feet wet. They don’t swim, but Elora, like Wongawol Darrah and a couple of the Kimberley horses, love paddling.

As long as she never tries to go for a swim under saddle!

March 2009 Update

It's lovely to know that Elora is still doing extremely well. Recognised as a horse who always wanted a job to do, she was sold (after careful matching!) to a loving family in Denmark and these days shares her very large paddock with an older stockhorse mare.

Elora is maturing bigger than expected and although still only rising 3 years, she's already 14.2hh. Wonderful for her owners because she'll be an excellent sized mount for Jo, mother and trainer, as well as a future mount for the family's children.

The family took Elora on free lease at first, to help educate her and themselves further, but they quickly fell in love with the gregarious filly and decided to buy her. We hope to see Elora again in the future, and trust that she will continue to enjoy her southern life - learning and teaching at the same time, as all these wonderful heritage horses seem to do.

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Story and photos by KA Waddington.