Lindsay Park has safely relocated 128 horses from its Euroa property to the Inglis Oaklands Junction complex after the devastating Longwood bushfire tore through the region, leaving significant damage in its wake.<\/p>\n
The blaze caused severe destruction across the Hayes family\u2019s renowned thoroughbred operation, with a number of horses based on the property also affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cEight per cent of the property is irrigated and that eight per cent is still standing,\u201d said an emotional Sophie Steel (Hayes), the general manager of Lindsay Park. \u201cThe irrigated areas are all our key infrastructure and tracks; everything else is gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, I can report we\u2019ve lost seven horses. Five of those are racehorses, two of them are retirees. We had 30 retirees on the farm, the rest of which are being stabled here at Inglis and cared for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 320 horses that are safe. When our fire plan was enacted, the focus was solely on saving horses, and we were able to save 320 of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steel said the past few days had been harrowing for her family and staff, but the support from the wider racing community had been overwhelming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite emotional for us watching float after float of all our competitors come to pick up and evacuate our horses here,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the worst of mother nature in the last three days, and the best of humanity. Our community, there is nothing like it. We are very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She praised the horses for their resilience amid the chaos and noted how remarkably unaffected many of those stabled at Euroa remained, despite the conditions around them. But with significant damage across the property and the bushfire situation still active, a return to regular operations appears some way off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, our priority continues to be the safety of our horses and our people,\u201d Steel said. \u201cOur horses are safe; they continue to be fed and watered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not yet safe for our people to return to the farm for normal work, but as soon as it is safe to do so, we will get back to normality as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lindsay Park has safely relocated 128 horses from its Euroa property to the Inglis Oaklands Junction complex after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[181244,43,44,215519,41,39,42,40,215518],"class_list":["post-406668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-euroa","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sophie-steel","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victrorian-bushfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}