About 80 staff were evacuated, with a handful staying behind to help save the $25 million property and about 180 priceless racehorses. “I stayed with a couple of my key men and we sat up on the water truck, I thought it might have been a slight overreaction to be honest,” Mr Hayes said. “But then the wind changed as they predicted and before we knew it the fire was upon us. “We were amateur fire fighters protecting about $25 million of horses. “We kept everyone in touch with what was going on and there was a lot of tweeting.” As the firefront approached the 485ha property, staff let about 60 horses in the paddocks out to roam before rounding them up in the early hours of this morning after the fire threat had passed. “We just had no chance, it went right over us, I thought if I can’t save the house at least I can save the horses so we ran around and opened up all the paddocks,” Mr Hayes said. “The horses have never been in a fire before but they were bloody good. “The horizon was in flames and we surrounded by fire like a horseshoe. “Some of the horses weren’t able to find the gate so they lined up in a straight line sniffing the fire and then leapt over the flames to an already burnt out section.”
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 09:59:48 +0000
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