Past Projects - Theda

Theda station is in the Northern Kimberley and featured in Lizzie Spenders book, Wild Horse Diaries. Worth a read as the history of the horses is explained and there are lots of pictures and text to describe the terrain and circumstances of the horses up there.

Father Sanz, a Spanish missionary, came to the Kimberley’s originally in 1936..his heart lies up there although he spent a lot of time in New Norcia. Originally there were very few horses up north and Father Sanz spent a church donation on shipping ten horses and a stallion up there that allowed for cattle to be run and managed on the station and the horse numbers increased…a further 110 horses were added in the 1050 when a new employee arrived.

In the 1960s a generous donation from John Morgan arrived in the form of two purebred arab stallions and ten mares. One of the stallions, Homer, was a grey bred by the Queensland Agricultural College and the other, Summer Safari was a chestnut with three white socks.
This breeding core intermingled with the stock horses for the next twenty years and when the stallions were finally retired to New Norcia there were about 250 horses on the station.
At about that time mechanisation was replacing the horse and they were left to roam free and breed up. Wild horses have the capacity to increase their population numbers by 20% per year so it doesn't take long for overstocking to become a problem. As is the common story, these horses are now competing with the cattle for food and water and it is not practical or economical to run large numbers.

Earlier this year they caught 19 horses during the cattle muster and most of these horses have been successfully re-homed...they have found their way to Kunnanurra, Broome , Perth and the South West. The logistics of the exercise are horrendous...transport, yarding and feeding costs and the added complication of late pregnant mares being amongst them has added to the headaches!

It looks as if the owners are prepared to repeat the exercise, having learnt a lot from the first. Basically these horses show strong Arab influence, are relatively light boned, and seem to mature 14hh and under. The colours carry a lot of dilutes in that there are buckskins, palominos and cremellos but in the last mob there were also pintos and chestnuts.

Libby Lovegrove, from Broome, organised the last rescue and if you require any details re subsequent projects please contact her on...

raintreehouse@yahoo.com.au