Air Horse Transport ready to emerge after months of being grounded
Calthorpe hoping Magic Millions carnival will lead to horses getting back in the air
The proprietor of the Victoria-based Air Horse Transport is banking on the upcoming Magic Millions carnival kick-starting his business’s recovery after months of border closures and minimal equine movement had it on the brink of collapse.
Chris Calthorpe revealed that the Queensland border’s reopening to Victorians from today would play a pivotal role in helping his equine freight operation return to normality with some of the state’s leading trainers signalling their intent to target January’s $12 million Gold Coast carnival.
“Covid-19 has been 100 per cent detrimental to my business. It nearly finished me and I am lucky that I have been able to just hang in there. It has been terrible,” Calthorpe told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“When you have got a good, steady stream of horses, it is worthwhile, but there’s a lot of uncertainty and we basically missed all the Brisbane carnival, all the Perth carnival and a lot of horses coming into Melbourne from Perth who came by road instead this year.
“Brisbane-bound horses also went by road who would normally fly, we missed all those as well.
“We have managed to hang in there just with the view that we will get a few to go up to Brisbane for the Magic Millions.”
Calthorpe intends to have horses on flights weekly in the lead up to Christmas until the week of the Magic Millions race day, to be held on January 16.
Tony McEvoy is one trainer who has previously campaigned horses, particularly two-year-olds, in Queensland in the lead-up to the Magic Millions carnival, most successfully with Sunlight (Zoustar) in late 2017 and early 2018.
Calthorpe said: “I have had quite a bit of interest. Once the Premier of Queensland announced that she was going to open the border (today), people have started to plan things.
“Because of the uncertainty of borders being shut and whether you can get staff up and back, that’s been one of the main problems for the past six to seven months.
“People don’t want to send a Group 1 horse to another trainer and have no staff there.”
While things are looking up for Calthorpe, he was delivered another blow yesterday when a flight from Sydney to Perth took off but the plane did not have any horses on it, meaning there were no last-minute interstate acceptors for Saturday’s $1 million Kingston Town Classic (Gr 1, 1800m) at Ascot.
He had canvassed Melbourne and Sydney trainers a fortnight ago about using yesterday’s flight but none took up the offer.
“The flight is on, but no one got on it. It is very disappointing,” he said.
“I think a lot of it has got to do with the WA border still being shut. It is hard to get grooms in there. It is getting beyond a joke, WA.”
Calthorpe was able to facilitate one flight to Perth in late October for interstate horses, a service which Godolphin used to send Trekking (Street Cry) and Kementari (Lonhro) to the west while Matthew Williams sent veteran Gailo Chop (Deportivo) as did Lindsey Smith with Trap For Fools (Poet’s Voice).
The next four to five months will determine the appetite trainers have to once again fly horses to carnivals across the country.
“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll start moving horses up to Brisbane and into the New Year and things start to get back on track and we can get business back to what it was 12 months ago,” he said.
“The Brisbane carnival last year I think I flew up 34 horses in six weeks. Last year to Perth, I took over 18 horses for the carnival on one plane and then they all came home. We also did ten or 15 up to the Gold Coast over Christmas and New Year for the Magic Millions carnival.
“From now on until Easter, it is quite a busy period for us, so hopefully we don’t fall back into a Covid-19 trap and we will keep going forward and we’ll be right.”
The racetrack results, meanwhile, will determine how many horses are sent from Melbourne to Toowoomba, the airport used by the international airline contracted by Calthorpe.
“A lot of the Magic Millions horses will race here (in Melbourne). I know a few of them are racing on Boxing Day at Caulfield,” he said.
“It is all dependent on prize-money to get a start, so you nominate and then see where you are in the ballot order, so a lot of them don’t like to send them up there until they know they are going to get a run.”