‘People put their lives in danger to get the horses out’ – stud owner hails remarkable rescue effort during bushfire crisis
Michael Christian, principal at Longwood Thoroughbred Farm, has shared an emotional firsthand account of rescue efforts after uncontrollable bushfires engulfed the thoroughbred heartlands of Victoria.
Fires have had a devastating impact across the state, with over 100 buildings destroyed and more than 300,000 hectares of land burned. On Saturday morning Victorian premier Jacinta Allan moved to declare a state of disaster.
The event has had a profound impact on the racing and bloodstock community, and Christian detailed the “Herculean” lengths his team and others had gone to to ensure the safety of horses in the area.
“The most important thing is that all our staff are well, although tired and jaded,” he said. “When the threat came on Thursday we made the decision to evacuate all 165 horses on the farm. The staff did such an incredible job. I flew in from the Gold Coast so I didn’t get there until 8.30pm that night, but the staff had already been working since 5.30am and the last horse left the farm at 6.30am the next day on Friday morning. What they did was Herculean.
“We have a ridge to the south of our property and when we were loading the horses it was just alight with multiple blazes; it looked like a Christmas tree. The wind was coming from the south so we were in a direct line, and my fear on Thursday night was that it would come and completely run over the property.”
Christian hailed the selflessness of those within the thoroughbred community, and shared two acts of bravery that typified the wider response to the crisis.
“Shaun Hearmon and his daughter almost singlehandedly staved off the fire from our main barn, which at that point still had some horses in,” he said. “Our vet, Stacy McGregor and her son Nick, who was driving past checking in on her property, went in and moved horses out of the barn when the danger appeared. They’re such incredible people to have helped out in that situation.
“We’ve had the support of so many people, including Yulong, Godolphin, Danny O’Brien and Troy Corstens sent trucks up, lots of smaller players were there with floats too. Troy Stephens and Claudia McDougall from Yulong rang and said ‘We have a two-horse float, do you want us to come?’ I said that would be awesome and they did. It was incredible.”
Although still coming to terms with the scale and consequences of the disaster, Christian was in no doubt about the sacrifices made by those who stepped up in the most trying of circumstances.
“Those people who helped, our staff in particular, put their own lives in danger to help get the horses out, which was truly remarkable,” he said. “There’s so many stories like ours where people have contributed and sacrificed themselves to help others.
“You feel proud to be part of such an incredible community; it’s unconditional help and support. Some of our staff, after having zero sleep, went and helped Sean and Cathy Dingwall load horses at Blue Gum Farm so they could evacuate. That’s just amazing commitment.”
He added: “It leaves you lost for words and a bit emotional about the whole thing. It’s scary. The people who put their lives on the line to help us, particularly Shaun Hearmon and Stacy McGregor, it’s hard to know how to thank them enough.”
Despite having lost buildings and infrastructure to the blaze, Christian said the devastation experienced by others had left him feeling like “one of the fortunate ones.”
“We got all the horses off the farm and battened down last night,” he said. “We’re certainly not as bad as some, as other people have lost their homes. We lost infrastructure but that can be replaced, and by and large we got away with it without experiencing the carnage that others did. We were one of the more fortunate ones.
“We lost a shed and a big barn and some other infrastructure, but our office, our main barn, walker, sand roll and our house and staff accommodation have survived. The CFA did an incredible job to stave off any further damage.”
Christian was speaking from Magic Millions ahead of the Gold Coast Yearling Sale, where Longwood has a seven-strong draft set come under the hammer from Tuesday.
“I’ve been up and back and trying to work out where to be,” he said. “I don’t know what the right thing to do is necessarily but the sale here starts on Tuesday and, as callous as it sounds, the show’s got to go on. We have some beautiful yearlings here for our clients and we need to maximise their sales values, so I’m here trying to do that.
“I’ve got an incredible support team at home. My farm manager, Lelaina Vennemeyer, and my wife, Siobhan, are doing an incredible job along with the rest of our staff.”
Although horses’ immediate safety was the number one priority during the evacuation, Christian said the move had brought a secondary set of challenges.
“One of the challenges you have when you evacuate 165 horses in a mad scramble is they’ve ended up in seven different locations, so trying to track and identify and care for them after that is also difficult from a logistical standpoint,” he said. “We’re at that stage now and we hope that at some point in the coming days, or it may be the coming weeks, we can reassess the damage at the farm and try to get our horses back.
“For the time being it’s just about dealing with the present, making sure our staff and horses are well and that everyone continues to stay safe. We’re a little bit in the lap of the Gods depending on what happens with the fire, but we’ve just got to do what we can for the moment and hope that everybody stays safe.”