Australian Stock Horse Journal Bicentennial Edition 1988

Featured Image: Australian Stock Horse Journal Bicentennial Edition Front Cover April/May 1899

David Dial riding his Australian Stockhorse PARKWAY RENEE

It doesn’t really seem all that long ago? John Green was ASHS Chairman and Mike Rushbrook was Executive Manager and Managing Editor. The contents included some fascinating vignettes on ‘The Waler’, ‘Quarter Horse Influence’, ‘Nat Buchanan’, ‘Rivoli Ray’, ‘Abbey’, ‘History of the Australian Stockhorse’, ‘Nabinabah Breezette’, ‘Rannock’ and many others.

On a mildly pejorative note I realised that merely twenty five years on many of the icon breeders of Australian Stockhorses in the Upper Hunter have ‘disappeared’ for a variety of reasons. It seems the larger cattle farms (’stations’) and graziers are no longer breeding working horses? Many of these actually advertised in the Bicentennial Journal. I can list the following quite easily: ‘Thornthwaite’ (Finlay), ‘Wootton’ (Bishop), ‘Rosebrook’ (Blake), ‘Piercefield’ (Gilder), ‘Tinagroo’ (Mackay), ‘Dunwell’ (John Archibald), ‘Nabinabah’ (David Archibald), ‘Glenalvon’ (Arnott), ‘Scrumlo’ (Lee Warner), ‘Glenrock’, ‘Belmont’, ‘Comara’ (Hill) and a few others. In some cases it’s because ‘generation next’ either aren’t interested; or don’t exist. Succession planning doesn’t always pan out as intended. Gender inequity is deeply entrenched in the psyche. New modes of transport and economic impacts (drought et al) may also play some part.