Horse Deals – March 2026

Summary

Horse Deals' March 2026 issue asks whether Australia's horse sports can keep their social licence, then answers with campdrafter Adam Wallen, AQHA treasurer Trish Wettenhall, cutter Dean Holden and reiner Kate Elliott on why family involvement is driving western disciplines from Gatton to Tamworth.

The March 2026 issue puts four western-discipline figures on the record. Adam Wallen, sixth generation of a Lockyer Valley horse family, says campdrafting is now the fastest-growing equestrian sport in Australia, with 1,200 to 1,300 runs in a single Gatton weekend. Trish Wettenhall, AQHA treasurer of 20-plus years, reports interest in Quarter Horses has more than quadrupled across her 45 years in the industry.

Cutting trainer Dean Holden, whose NCHA futurity numbers have nearly outgrown Tamworth's AELEC, and reining judge Kate Elliott both point to welfare policing as the price of growth — Elliott notes both reining bodies pushed futurity ages from three to four. Outside the western ring, the issue carries Dianne Barnes, who qualified for the Paris 2024 Paralympics on a leased mare while managing Parkinson's.

Training and health fill the middle. Ruby Rae gives a four-pole circle exercise for accuracy and straightness; Daizi Plumb walks through mouthing, roller and driving before a first ride. Dr Nerida McGilchrist links hindgut microbes to behaviour and tells riders to feed lucerne before saddling. Dr Kate Fenner argues horses smell human stress and warns that pinned ears are a horse already shouting.

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Content Guide

▸ Cover Story

p.72 · The Future Of Equine Sport In Australia

Covers the four campdrafting bodies under the NCCA, the 1928 Warwick Gold Cup, and reining's two rival administrators. Adam Wallen breeds Doongara Stock Horses and says Gatton alone stages four or five drafts a season. Trish Wettenhall reports AQHA registrations are Australia's third-largest stud book behind Thoroughbreds and ASH. Dean Holden's futurity entry list has nearly outgrown AELEC; Kate Elliott explains why both reining bodies lifted futurity ages to four.

▸ Interviews & Tributes

p.8 · Equestrian Legend: Dianne Barnes

Di Barnes wanted a fox, got a Shetland called Pete tied to the clothesline, and cried. Forty-odd years later she won Barastoc and National Hack titles on Royalty, rode Porthos at Melbourne Three Day Event after breaking her nose mid-course, and qualified for the Paris Paralympics on Sharyn McCoombes' Sorena while managing Parkinson's. Now she has Jenny Rapson's Prix St Georges Friesian, Tjibbe B, and a WEG qualifier at Willinga. Her line: 'I will go out fighting.'

p.12 · Young Rider: Millicent Fletcher

Millicent Fletcher, 14, of Yass, won the FEI Junior Championship at the Australian Youth Dressage Championships and scored 76.067% in the freestyle to Candyman, a song her father suggested. She started riding five years ago after watching Heartland in lockdown, rehabbed a laminitic Welsh pony called Picasso, and now rides Amsterdam, an eight-year-old Dutch gelding bought after a 12-month search. She trains five times weekly in 25-minute sessions and is allergic to horses.

p.24 · Power Couple: Shenae Lowings & Sam Woods

Woodlow Equine runs on 12 to 15 racehorse pairs each morning and six to ten eventers each afternoon. Sam Woods won the CCI4*S at Sydney Three Day Event in 2025 on SS Eight Count; Shenae Lowings rode Bold Venture at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where Sam stayed home to keep the business running. The Q&A covers role division, their one shared rule about the loser driving home, and the line that not every horse is a champion but every horse has a right owner.

p.34 · Matthew Williams: Group Winning Trainer To Eventer

Warrnambool trainer Matthew Williams has prepared more than 500 winners, including two Group Twos, and now rides at 95cm on Wangoom, a galloper he could have sold to Hong Kong for half a million dollars before a tendon scan killed the deal. He talks about trackwork mornings, his four children competing through Warrnambool Pony Club, and a dressage score he apologises to judges for. Barry Roycroft's advice — you'll remember riding with your kids — frames it.

p.82 · Tribute To A Champion: Mr Bonbastic

Mr Bonbastic died in November 2025, aged 16, at Jane and David Manchon's place. Foaled in 2008 by Doc's Bon Jovi out of Soda Osprey, Bluey won the 2019 ASH Westpac Star of the Year, countless led and working supremes, and became the anchor of the Rooftop Express show — carrying singer Emma Irrene in a 20-metre dress train and walking through a wall of fireworks. Jane's tribute records that he never said no.

▸ Training & Health

p.28 · Improving Accuracy, Straightness & Contact With Ruby Rae

Ruby Rae, 19, of Greenhill Equestrian in Western Australia, sets four poles on a five-metre radius with three average canter strides between them. Ride the circle at walk, trot and canter, count steps between poles, and change rein through two small semicircles. She credits the drill with her wins on WHF Frequency at Melbourne Three Day Event, where she took the YR2*-L in 2024 and second in the CCI3*-L in 2025. Same gear, any arena.

p.58 · Starting The Young Show Horse — Fresh Breakers With Daizi Plumb

Daizi Plumb, 22, breaks in at three, mouths with the bit sitting correctly, then adds a roller with baling twine threaded through the bit and bottom ring. By day two the breaker trots and canters in a frame on voice command. She drives with two lunge leads before swinging a leg, leaves the rump rope to her father Dale, and gives a 15-minute first ride if everything is answered. Part 1 of three.

p.90 · Feeding To Keep Your Horse Zen With Dr Nerida McGilchrist

Dr Nerida McGilchrist argues nutrition drives behaviour more than most people admit. Hindgut microbes produce dopamine and serotonin; disturb the balance and you get hypervigilance and reactivity. Her numbers: at least 2% of bodyweight in forage daily (10kg for a 500kg horse), grain capped at 0.5kg per 100kg bodyweight, no uncooked grains except oats. The practical fix is feeding lucerne hay as you saddle up, so forage and saliva stop acid splashing the unprotected upper stomach.

p.122 · Do Horses Have Emotions? With Dr Kate Fenner

Dr Kate Fenner, PhD in horse behaviour, moves the argument from the Five Freedoms of the 1960s to the Five Domains, where mental state is the fifth. She cites an experiment in which horses exposed to odours of fear or joy shifted heart rate and behaviour, and an early-2000s arena trial where both horse and rider heart rates rose before a man opened an umbrella. Her point: a horse swishing its tail at canter is already telling you something.

▸ From The Shows

p.18 · Wallaby Hill Extravaganza

Wallaby Hill on 8 February lost its outdoor main ring to weather, so the Eventers versus Showjumpers class moved indoors. Christopher Burton returned from overseas to win the final class on stallion Deo Concur with two clear rounds and took the Gubbins Mitre 10 1.30m; Gemma Tinney was second on PHS Hilton and fourth on Fernhill Aisling Star, Sam Lyle third. Costumes carried the day: Alexandra Townsend's ABBA routine on WHF Liquorice scored 10, 10, 10.

p.50 · Barastoc Horse Of The Year

Barastoc ran 6–8 February at Werribee Park. Regalia, ridden by Ali Kent, took Champion Large Hack; Global PPS won Champion Large Show Hunter Hack for owner Sue Thompson with Steph Barrington riding. Daizi Plumb placed second in the Large Galloway on Royalwood Excite, also Champion Child's Large Galloway under Annabelle Richardson, and second in the Large Show Hunter Galloway on DP Royal Ascot. Kolbeach Hollys Choir Boy was Champion Large Pony.

▸ Off The Track & Adventure

p.36 · Off The Track: Blue Flame

Blue Flame ran twice as Blue Banjo — tenth of ten at Toowoomba and eighth of eight at Dalby — then won the Off The Track Jumping Championship at the Magic Millions Polo and Showjumping with owner-rider Olivia Rolfe, collecting $16,000 against zero racetrack earnings. Bred by Mike Kelly at Dalby and trained briefly by the late Peter Sexton, he is by Outback Prince out of Little Beautiful. Jasmin Ritter restarted him with paddock time before rides and jumps.

p.128 · Gin & Fable: An American, A Brumby And An Eight-Month Journey Across The Nullarbor

Gin Szagola, 25, learnt to ride at 21 in Pennsylvania, rode a wild Mustang called Finley across the United States, then came to Australia to work with Brumbies. She bought Fable, captured in the Snowy Mountains and placed through the Victorian Brumby Association, spent three months training him from scratch, and says she is the first rider to cross the Nullarbor alone with one horse over eight months. She camps, watches his welfare, and refuses to take sides in the cull debate.

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Editor's Take

The Future Of Equine Sport piece is the issue's spine and its best argument: every western voice names family involvement, not prize money, as the growth engine, and Adam Wallen's 1,200-run Gatton weekend backs it up. The follow-through is thinner. Dean Holden and Kate Elliott each concede welfare scrutiny is now permanent, yet the magazine reports the reining split between Reining Australia and NRHA Oceania without pressing either body on whether two sets of rules helps anyone. Buy it for the interviews; the Dianne Barnes piece alone justifies the cover price.

Strengths
• Four discipline experts on the record, with page-72 detail on campdrafting's 1,200-run weekend.
• Daizi Plumb's Fresh Breakers guide gives step-by-step breaking method, not philosophy.
• Dr Fenner's umbrella experiment and tail-swish example make equitation science usable.

Weaknesses
• The reining governance split is reported, never adjudicated; both bodies escape hard questions.
• Western coverage crowds out showjumping and dressage beyond two gallery spreads.

Verdict: Recommended — Buy for the Future of Our Sport interviews and Daizi Plumb's breaking guide; the western disciplines dominate at the expense of other codes.