Ah, well this is Astrid.
We re-named her Astrid. Her racing name was Astraf.
She only raced a couple of times, unfortunately not very successfully.
Oh pardon me.
It's meant to be the race that stops the nation
but where do race horses go when they're too slow, too injured
or too old to race?
He was a racehorse, this fella.
Sal is his name.
His racing name was Sure Zal, apparently.
My name's Anne Bailey,
I'm the caretaker at Horse Rescue Australia.
We rescue, rehabilitate and re-home horses
that have been abused, abandoned or neglected.
We do have some ex-racehorses here.
These are horses that haven't quite measured up.
May have suffered an injury.
May have behavioural issues,
so they haven't been able to find a home after their racing career.
We take horses that need help.
This is the slightly lazy version of doling out the hay.
Oh. Are you going to go over there?
I'll see if I can get this old girl.
Let's go.
Uh nah.
Fell short.
Once their career's finished, some racehorses, if they're mares, they will go onto be breeding mares,
they'll have babies.
That's only quite a small number, unfortunately.
Sometimes they will end up at the knackery.
Where, which is where they go to make dog food.
It's a sad reality.
We've got a couple of special needs horses.
This is Darcy.
This old fella who'll come and say hello.
See you, Darce!
They're very honest.
There's no hidden agendas.
What you see is what you get pretty much.
Some are a bit shy.
Some are quite pushy,
others are just quite lovely they just come up and say hello
and just stand with you and wanna be with you.
Astrid's found a special friend.
She likes scruffy the big brown horse behind here.
They'll be hanging out under the trees during the day
and they just hang out and chill out and
have a bit of a graze, go out the back have some water,
come back up wait for dinner.
Sounds like my life.
Oh you know I'm just hoping some rich older man comes along and sweeps me off my feet
and then maybe keels over and dies and leaves me all his money. Oh who knows?
Farmer, fa-
horse girl wants a-
horse girl wants bloke.
Yes.
I hope you don't mind that I have sock marks where my tan line should be.
Love this song.
# Don't tell me, this is paradise. #
I mean I do enjoy watching racing,
which is probably a contradiction seeing as I am with horse rescue but
I love horses.
I kind of watch it just worrying, hoping that the horses and the jockeys are all gonna be quite safe.
I guess we get to see the other side at horse rescue unfortunately.
When the glamour's all over and the excitements gone and the champagne's been drunk.
I mean, I know the horses' welfare is becoming more and more important.
I think there's a lot more vigilance as for how horses are being treated.
That they're not being doped, that they're not being flogged that they're...
they're being looked after well.
I think they just need to not breed so many.
Not race them when they're so young and just when they do finish racing
it'll just take a little bit of training, retraining to help move them into a different sort of life.
I mean I guess we're just a drop in the ocean what we do here.
But I guess if we can help a couple, that's a good thing.