Floating The Dollar.

The EI outbreak is having a devastating affect on the horse industry, we all know that, but for those within the industry whose livelihood relies on movement, the virtual standstill and cancellation of most equestrian competition for the foreseeable future, has put a handbrake on their income. Horse Deals caught up with three float manufacturers to find out how they were coping.

For Premier Floats principle, Brett Hickey, there is good new and bad news. But it is fair to say the bad outweighs the good by a considerable margin. Brett is a successful showjumping rider with five horses in work. “I did not want to take them out until after the Spring Carnival, as I could not risk having them locked down somewhere”. Now there is not much of an opportunity for an outing until the end of the year. So it can be argued that Brett is saving on petrol and perhaps that is good news. But not only has he been unable to attend shows, the telephone at his Premier Floats company at Geelong in Victoria,“has been very quiet. We have plenty of work to do at the moment, as we are catching up on work already contracted, but come February, unless we get orders, we will really feel the economic impact of EI”.

Premier Floats as well as producing the conventional float, specialise in commercial horse transports. “We do regular work on some big horse transports that is worth about $400,000 to us annually, but as they have not been on the road for the last three to four months, we have not had that work. We have a couple of big semis in at the moment for show people, but the near future is not looking good, however, we will have to wait and see”.

Sue from the national Kara Kar Float company explains; “as Australia’s largest horse float manufacturer, EI has dramatically affected our business. Fortunately we have the resources and variability in our product lines to ride out this outbreak; others may not be so lucky. We have international markets that we service and also sell RV’s, so with out product range of fifth wheel caravans and slide on campers in stock, and with quite a few orders to full fill, we are managing to keep out head above water.

The cancellation of Equitana has taken away one of our major advertising events for the year, where we get out from our yards and meet the people of Australia and show them our new and innovative ideas. Just as the EI outbreak hit, we were launching a new product for larger horses called the Warmblood. Response has been enthusiastic, but the urgency has been taken out of the market due to the lockdown. We have been fortunate enough to appoint new dealers to add to our already extensive network in Melbourne and Adelaide, where there is no EI, and they will be working with us to provide excellent sales and service to all new and existing customers. We are open and hungry for business.

Danny Voyka brought the 40 year-old Brisbane based Roswal Trailers six years ago. “We have spent a lot of money improving the machinery and computerizing the business. We just bought a $300,000 machine; of course I did not know we would have an EI outbreak at the time. My background is in engineering and stainless steel and I am a specialist welder. We are fairly flat out with orders we already have, but if we don’t get orders from February, we are really going to feel it with the horse related business, which at the moment is about 99% of what we do. We used to do a lot of commercial kitchens, but became very busy with the horse trailers. With so many of our customers living in the country, we try to organise everything for them. If they want we can buy the truck and organise the tray and the body and try to get them the best deal possible.

“When EI first started, our phone calls and emails went up four fold, then all of a sudden the other day, no calls, no emails, nothing. Now we would be lucky to get a phone call every third day. Early on everyone thought they would get work done, as they could not go to shows. It has given me breathing space to put up another building, but you have to be concerned as to what will happen in February/March. I have always been taught never to burn bridges and we can do anything and will make it, but it will be hard. You have to be able to cope with changes, be it in the economy or because of EI. If you think positively, there is no problem”.