The Hand Brake On.

20th October.

If your business is transporting horses up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia, then you are having a tough time at the moment. Not of course that you would be the only one, but as Jason Joyce of Southern Cross Horse Transport commented; “at the moment a horse transport business doesn’t have a great future; EI could not hit any business harder. When you run an interstate transport company and you can’t take anything in to Victoria, that’s a big problem.

”We bought Southern Cross Horse Transport about 14 months ago, with the idea that it would be something my stepdaughters (Danielle and Greer Butcher) could run in the future to support their showjumping. I’ve worked very hard at the business for the last 12 months and we were looking at expanding, but of course at the moment that’s all on hold. We have two trucks and the way the business was going we were looking at getting another truck. We mainly service the performance horse industry and I have some very good clients in the harness industry. We don’t do much track to track work, as they usually want the horses taken from A to B in the shortest possible time. On the Sydney/Melbourne run we like to stop over at Tarcutta and give the horses a break, and the performance horse people like that. Of course that has all changed now, as the work we get has to go straight through without stopping.

“The various permits required does make the movement of horses more difficult and we have to work out what horses can go where and what protocols you have to follow to move those horses. We’ve been able to do a little work, which has been dependent on the availability of permits. We usually run 60 horses on the Melbourne/Sydney run each week, now we would do between three and seven. Most of what we have been doing is delivering horses that have been bought mainly through Horse Deals magazine and can now go home, and there have been show horses down with trainers in Melbourne for the Royal that are now going back to their owners. It’s really not an economical proposition to run down to Victoria empty, pick up a horse and then follow all the protocols to take it to a certain Zone. In some cases it is just not possible. I like to stay within the Green Zones and work in them to limit the risk. The colours are like a big jigsaw and you have to put your colours together and move within them. I have to know that I am moving EI free horses and that is the worry. But in this business you have to travel full both ways to make money.

“I try and spend as much time on the computer as I can, as you have to be able to follow what’s going on and the NSW DPI have been very helpful. You can’t drive from Green Zone to Green Zone through another colour and that changed the other day and I had to swing out much wider and go west. The paperwork involved is tremendous. Really the only reason I am transporting horses at the moment is that I have clients that expect me to do the job for them and you do not want to let them down. Early on during the standstill and good client offered me a job moving general freight. At that time no horses truck was allowed to go through a border crossing, so I could not do it.

“I would only be doing a fraction of the work at the moment and I can only physically do one run a week. It takes eight to ten hours to clean the truck and you have to be able to eat off the floor if you want to be serious about following the protocols. We have our own gurney and carry virkon spray and other bleach, have changes of clothes and carry masks. If everyone does the right thing, it will make a big difference.

“We are in Pheasants Nest south of Sydney and we don’t have EI. We are just out of the buffer zone, but we have quite a lot of vaccinated horses around us, which should help. We will just keep doing what we can and hope by early in the New Year we will have some idea how to proceed.”

Footnote.

Some movement is possible and as Jason explained the situation changes. Check with your DPI if you want to move horses or pick up one you have bought. It may not be as difficult as you think.