IT’S 5am in the morning.
Through the quiet darkness, horses make steam with their breath as they meander to the dam for a drink and birds start to twitter sleepily in the trees.
This is when Claire Todd begins her day.
The Hobbys Yards horse breeder is up and about, dressed as always in her trusty overalls, feeding dogs and doing paperwork.
After checking and feeding horses, Claire hops in the car at 6am, driving for nearly an hour to nearby Bathurst.
And this is when her day takes a very different path. The fighter comes out.
Claire is a professional cage fighter, juggling her career of breeding thoroughbreds for the racing industry with intense fighting training.
Her story will be told in a documentary called Caged, which follows three cage fighters and will air on SBS next week.
Claire and her father John run about 150 Hereford cows at “Allandale Park”, at Hobbys Yards, where they also run around 120 brood mares.
Their operation includes breeding foals for Thoroughbred owners, taking care of the mares through pregnancy and foaling, and training the foals ready to go to the breaker.
“We just get them ready to go out for a racing career,” she said. “We get them as big and strong as possible.”
Claire said foaling is always a very hectic time, which takes place from September to December, and includes round the clock monitoring and helping of foaling mares.
“We had five foals in one night,” she said.
Horses are fed and checked every morning and afternoon, and depending on the season, foaling and serving fills the day, and during winter days are spent on feeding and maintenance.
Foals are weaned from February to May, and during this time they are taught to lead.
Allandale Park has produced many winning horses, including 16 horses who have made more than $30,000 in their career.
A filly named Platelet, who was by their stallion Strategic, was a group one winner and won $1.3 million.
Horses have been a huge part of Claire’s life, but there was something missing.
“When I was younger I wanted to be a fireman. Then I realised I wasn’t a man,” she joked. “Then I thought I might be a nurse.”
Once she finished school, Claire wanted to get fit, so early in her 20s she thought she would give kick boxing a go.
“I was terrible,” she said. “It was just a bit of fun twice a week.”
She continued kick boxing, or muay thai, for a few years, and then started doing training and fitness three nights a week.
Then, one day, her coach Ian Pollet at Pollet’s Martial Arts Centre made a request.
“He goes, ‘do you want to fight in two weeks?’. And without thinking, I said ‘yep’,” Claire said.
Claire headed to Wyong for her fight, which was the only female fight for the night.
“I go out into the ring, and there was a bit of a crowd,” she said. “And here I am in a pair of pink shorts and a grey singlet. I hadn’t even thought about what I would wear.”
All that registered was that her opponent was really tall.
The next moment, Claire has been kicked in the chest.
“I didn’t even see it coming,” she said. “And I’m flat on my back thinking ‘I had better get up’.”
She made it through the first round, but while fighting in the second, she could hear her coach saying ‘body and head’.
“So I hit her in the body and head, and then I got sent to the neutral corner,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on. And then my coach says ‘you won’. And I said, ‘won what?’.
Claire continued with the kick boxing, learning with each fight.
“It is different to dealing with a mob of horses, where you just assume the fetal position,” she said.
“In the ring, you can’t just stop and say, ‘ouch, that hurt’. They are going to keep on coming. If you are not throwing, they will be throwing. You have to deal with the pain.”
She said there is a very high level of care and concern in the sport.
“It doesn’t extend past the point where someone can get injured,” she said. “There are less injuries in fighting than in rugby league.”
From here, Claire began learning mixed martial arts or MMA, which includes striking, kicking, take-downs and ground work.
“It was a steep learning curve,” she said.
In March last year, she made her pro-debut in Brace MMA with a fight at Luna Park.
In the third and final round, she took the advantage with a ‘ground and pound’ and won the fight.
After this success, she had a second Brace MMA fight scheduled for September.
She had to lose a little weight to make her flyweight division, but while in the sauna the day before the fight, something went wrong.
“I suffered heat stroke,” she said.
She was rushed unconscious to Westmead Hospital, and was placed in an induced coma due to swelling on her brain.
Claire said she woke up three days later.
“I woke up and thought, ‘this isn’t good’,” she said.
She was then transferred back to Bathurst hospital, and went home the next day. She said neurological tests showed her brain was fine, but for two weeks she was orange and swollen.
“My liver enzymes were high, but once I went back home, I went back to work the next day,” she said.
She had to give up training for a while, but in October last year, her enzyme levels went down, and she got clearance to fight in the karate, or goju ryu, championships in New Zealand.
She came home with a bronze medal.
In January this year, Claire began her MMA training again, preparing for a fight at the end of this month.
Now she is in full fight training, travelling to Bathurst twice a day to train while also working with her horses.
Claire said this time around, she has a different perspective.
“When I started this, I thought it was a bit of a hobby,” she said. “I’m proud of what I am. I’m a farmer and I’m a fighter.”
“I am going to take this as far as I can.”
