Toft Endurance and the Tom Quilty

This morning Horse Deals contacted International Endurance Rider and manager and owner of Toft Endurance Pty Ltd, Peter Toft. From their base at Marburg in Queensland, Peter and wife Penny, conduct a huge business, breeding, training, competing and selling endurance horses around the world. Our original call was to enquire if they could still attend the Tom Quilty National Endurance Championships at the end of September in Perth. Unfortunately, Peter informed us that Equine Influenza had reached their property yesterday and due to strict bio-security measures issued by the WA government, the Tom Quilty had already been restricted to WA horses only.

“We have a large group of horse here fit and ready to go to the Quilty. We have been trying to let them down since we knew we were not going to WA, but it is not easy. We have cut their feed right back and are just doing a bit with them on the walker, but seasoned horses like Justice and Murdoch (Peter and Murdoch pictued at WEG 2006) are just jumping out of their skin, they are ready to set off for 100 miles.

“Yesterday we got the first horse sick and now we expect the 500 horses here to all have EI in the next few days. We knew EI was about 5kms away and it has been blowing a gale, so we have been expecting it. It is a relief really; it is hard just sitting and waiting. Our property is not listed as infected and it may take six days before a DPI inspector comes to look at our horses, a situation that has been experienced by people we know. People have been going to the DPI and asking and asking where the EI has spread, so we can avoid or be more careful in those areas, but we are just told, that due to the privacy act they can not give out that sort of information.

“Qld used to have hundreds of stock inspectors, as you needed permits to move stock due to tick control, but since the Labour government came to power in QLD, 630 stock inspectors have lost their jobs and there is now no permit system to more horses.

“We have mares ready to foal any minute and we hope they will be OK. Reports we have suggest mares and foals do seem to be coping well with this infection. But, people are really starting to hurt, companies like Zilco are saying it is like the phone has been cut off. It will take years for the industry to get over this and some people never will. The government has no idea how big the non-racing horse community is and how much it adds to the economy.”

Peter suggested we ring Ieva Peters, Ride Secretary for the 2007 Tom Quilty, to get an update on the situation, this we did.

Ieva explained; “We have just got official word that no horses from the eastern states will be able to attend the Quilty, due to the WA boarder being closed for the foreseeable future, and horses cannot even fly into Perth. We had 30 entries from the east, that will no longer be coming, but we still have 80 entries from WA. We only have the Quilty here every six years, so people here tend to keep their special horse for that time, but many work two horses to guarantee a fit horse for the event. This year people have just come out of the woodwork offering horses for overseas and Eastern state riders to compete on; some are even donating their best horse. We have riders from Japan, the USA and possibly the UAE competing on borrowed horses, plus a few from the eastern states. The ride will start at 12 am Saturday 29th September.

For more information on the 2007 Quilty go to; http://endurancedb.com.au/index.php?qType=Quilty