We would love to have more information about Todd River Downs. Horse details, photos, family history any information about the station, people, and Waler horses from there.
Todd River Downs (TRD) is approximately 155km east of Alice Springs, a remote land trust at the edge of the Simpson Desert, Central Arrente country (the traditional owners are the Johnson family).
Todd River Downs came into being as a station in 1954 when the first government lease was granted. Previous to that it was Crown land without any grazing leases, possibly as it was so dry and remote. The people there were understandably hostile; and due to stock and people being speared, it was largely left alone in earlier times.
However, people did run stock there at times including horses, and excellent horses went wild there. Their bloodlines go back to the first horses of the Territory. TRD was previously part of the great Arltunga area where Warburton took top class horses to breed for the India trade. Later, coach and mine horses were run there – excellent coach services were run by the traditional owners through some of our toughest country.
The horses come in broken colours as well as solid – the colour diversity preserving yet more old genes. Many trace to ancient Spanish and Portuguese breeds in DNA ancestry tests, this shows significant Timor Pony influence.
Only three lots of horses have been extracted from TRD to date, the most recent in 2019 with all horses documented and DNA tested as it was a bespoke capture project. We are still in the process of collecting records for the first two truckloads (2012) as they were meat-works loads headed for Peterborough SA (over 400 horses in total we think). Some young stock were taken out and rescued in Alice Springs (possibly 23?), with others then rescued at Echuca Sales in VIC we believe. Most that we know of were broken colours, the other solid coloured horses sadly deemed unfashionable it seems.
NEWSFLASH! Great news for these old bloodlines. The Waler Horse Society of Australia is now accepting applications from members to register known TRD horses (May 2022). Young stallion Pinjee is the only stallion we know of from Todd River Downs, hence of great interest to the WHSA studbook.
