The sky’s the limit
When it comes to flying horses interstate for carnivals, there's one person to go to: Chris Calthorpe from Air Horse Transport (AHT).
Each spring, Calthorpe's name is bandied about by trainers as they either come to Melbourne to compete or get home. Occasionally, there is a hiccup, but most times finding a flight goes smoothly. As Calthorpe points out, flying horses in Australia almost always involves flights between Melbourne and Perth or Melbourne and Brisbane.
Calthorpe, who is also a racehorse trainer with stables at Geelong and Echuca, didn’t plan on becoming a key player in the Australian racing industry, but that’s how it has unfolded for him. He started working in 1994 for Vince Flannery, who ran the AHT business.
“I took some horses for him to Singapore in 1994, and I kept helping for four to five years. Then the opportunity came to buy the business,” he said. Calthorpe purchased it with his brother, ex-Essendon AFL premiership player David, who has recently left the business.
Trainers and owners contact Calthorpe when they need to fly a horse. “For the Victorian spring carnival, 95% of my business comes from the two longest routes: Brisbane and Perth. I need a week to a week and a half to find space with the airlines, and from there, it’s away we go,” he said. Calthorpe arranges flight space through Toll Logistics and said it’s usually not difficult to find space on flights for horses.
“They can provide space, and horses very rarely get bumped off. It’s a simple process if trainers give enough notice. It’s pretty straightforward getting to Melbourne but going home can be a bit tricky.”
As the number of horses heading to the Perth summer carnival from Melbourne has grown – Calthorpe recently flew close to 30 horses over, the most in the last ten years – he now charters a flight each year. “Getting space on a flight to Perth was tricky, so I decided to deal with it by chartering a flight each year for the carnival.”
Sending horses off on domestic flights is usually a night-time affair, as most planes leave and arrive between 11pm and 9am. “It works leaving at night, as if there’s a hiccup, I can get on to people and they can adjust quite easily,” said Calthorpe.
At least two accredited grooms are on every flight to supervise the horses, and, despite his busy schedule, Calthorpe personally supervises the horses coming and going off the flights at Tullamarine.
One horse that benefited from Calthorpe’s service is Nick Ryan’s Munhamek, who flew to Perth last year ahead of his victory in The Damien Oliver Gold Rush at Ascot (the race that provided Ollie with his fairytale send-off). Aaron Mitchell, Ryan's travelling foreman, flew with Munhamek and took care of his training during their four-week stay at Aaron’s grandfather, Wally Mitchell’s property, prior to the race.
“Munhamek is the perfect traveller since he’s been doing it all his life," Ryan said. “"Even though I didn’t get there until the day before the race, I could keep track of his training with regular updates and videos from Aaron.”
Road trip
Travelling horses from Melbourne to Sydney or Adelaide is a float operation for some, with stables like Danny O’Brien’s following a well-established routine.
Matt Harrington, business manager at Danny O’Brien Racing, said they took a small team to Brisbane for the winter carnival, using the same system they have for many years. The O’Brien stable has long been regular visitors to Queensland, with success again this year, highlighted by Vow And Declare and Maracana winning feature races.
Flemington foreman Lachie Currie headed to Brisbane for three weeks to supervise the horses, swapping with Racing Manager Jack Howard for the subsequent three weeks. The choice to float their horses to Brisbane rather than fly them is in order to avoid issues if a flight is cancelled.
“Nothing really changes from the horse’s point of view other than the travel component,” Harrington said.
On a Brisbane road trip, they split it into two stages. They might leave Flemington on a Thursday night, arriving in Sydney at 4am. Here the horses stay in a box at Matt Smith’s Rosehill stables where a staff member meets them, walks them and gives them a pick. They also have the use of a treadmill and walker, if required. They will then head off to Queensland at about 6pm, arriving the next morning.
For Adelaide or Sydney trips, the O’Brien stable uses different strategies. In Adelaide, they send horses to Chris Bieg at Morphettville, who takes care of them just as they would be in Melbourne, even down to taking the race-day videos.
For their rising star, Sea What I See, they adjusted the strategy due to her temperament, sending her to the Alexander brothers’ stables at Murray Bridge, away from the city environment.
A strapper from the O’Brien stable also accompanied her.
In Sydney, their horses are sent to Gerald Ryan’s stables for the day and during the Sydney carnival, they use boxes at his stable or the communal boxes at the racecourse. This sharing of resources across states exemplifies the supportive nature of the racing community, ensuring the horses stay happy and healthy as they travel across Australia, whether by air or road.
