‘Horses in Australia, An Illustrated History’ is a beautifully illustrated book that celebrates the horse in Australia – past and present.
From Cobb and Co. to Black Caviar, from the Walers of World War I to The Man From Snowy River, it showcases our best historical and contemporary images.
The horse has been an integral part of Australian history since the First Fleet brought the first horse to our shores.
From the resilient work horses of colonial Australia and those that carried the explorers, to the determined stock horses rounding up cattle and the finely tuned thoroughbreds that capture the country’s imagination at every Melbourne Cup, horses have contributed to many of the great human feats in our history. Here, alongside 180 stunning pages Nicholas Brasch tells why we love horses – and shows how they have been captured so strikingly by our photographers and artists.
Horses came to be valued as status symbols, in a society where other traditional British symbols of status and class were perhaps not readily accessible, or had little relevance in the new homeland.
The larger the horse, the finer it looked, the faster it ran, the greater esteem in which its owner was held.
For Aboriginal Australians, the horse was at first an unfamiliar beast, not unlike many other animals introduced to Australia. Horses played a critical role in the gold rushes of the 1850s. They were required to transport the optimistic diggers to the field, on horseback and by carriage.
They were ridden by officials trying to maintain some form of order.
They were used by the guards escorting gold from the goldfields to large towns and cities, particularly Melbourne and Adelaide.
As a result, horse numbers increased dramatically and reached more than 100,000 during the gold rush.
According to legend, horses had a role in the discovery of gold in Queensland in 1871. A group of prospectors, which included an indigenous boy given the name of Jupiter Mosman, were reaching for their horses after they had taken flight during a lightning strike.
Mosman finally located the horses near the base of a hill, then he spotted a glimmer of gold in a nearby stream.
