My friend Kevin Pick
Angela Tiede, August 2025. Image: Yards built by Kevin Pick on Todd River Downs NT.
After meeting Kevin Pick in 2019 while at Todd River Downs to capture 20 of his horses to bring back to Victoria I wanted to go back and visit again even as we were leaving that Friday 7 June, with horses loaded and heading to holding yards at Salt Bore near Alice Springs. It had been a busy and challenging week yarding and selecting horses, with no time to really look at the country or sit and chat with Kevin.

I stayed in touch every so often by phone and mail, sending little photo books so he could follow the progress of the horses I retained from that venture. I love those calls with Kevin, such a curious mind and so knowledgeable about the landscape and animals he is surrounded by. Keen to learn about my siblings, life experience, wide-ranging conversations. Always asking me about the grasses I have, the birds, the water supply, with a few chats about world affairs thrown in, and always the same sentiment as I: the seasons are really mucked up these days, plants flowering when they shouldn’t, flies hanging around when they should be gone, sudden warm days when they should be cold, and so on. When he answers the phone and I ask him how he is he always chuckles and replies: ‘still kicking’.

Kevin is no spring chicken, but he sure outdoes me with his broad ranging knowledge and sharp memory. Crippled with arthritis after decades of gruelling hard work on the land, Kevin just keeps on keeping on. His niece Cheryl in Alice Springs (pictured here with Kevin and I) is very close to her Uncle Kevin and happy to help out when needed.






Once when I had been flat out with my horses and farm so my phone calls had fallen off a bit, he answered the phone saying when I announced myself: ‘I thought you must have gone back to WA as I hadn’t heard from you for so long’. I had told him in one of our conversations that I lived there through my university years, so he just thought I had left Melbourne and gone back to WA, such is the transient life of so many in the NT, just a normal way to explain periods of slow communication according to Kevin’s life experience.
Kevin’s horses are a way of life. His daily activities are centred around checking on them, watering them, and enjoying their companionship, as they enjoy his. They represent the last of the wild ranging old-fashioned horses, pivotal to our development and trade, once so prized around the world, the only Australian breed. We’ve been fortunate to find domesticated futures for some of them, working hard to overcome the many challenges of capture and transport from the remote outstation, where the weather dictates safe road access and availability of horses at the trapping location, and the costs are high.







The horses roam Todd River Downs freely, traveling miles to find feed, and walking back to Kevin’s bore for water during dry periods without rain to replenish other sources. The land is on the edge of the Simpson desert: without water they would perish. He has yards where they enter to drink from a trough he keeps filled, which keeps them human friendly. So friendly he has to push them away when working on his pump and piping to the tank and trough. Very wary of strangers though of course: they don’t see many.
The yards are next to his windmill and bore, water pumped up with a fuel pump that Kevin starts morning and afternoon to fill the tank for the trough if the solar bore pump has not kept up with the volume of water consumed. The cattle give way to the horses, mostly coming in at a different time of the day to drink.



The vast harsh terrain keeps the horses true to the traits they were so prized for: good minds, well conformed, good doers. A rare collection of genetic diversity unique to Central Australia where millions of horses once were bred for domestic and export markets.






Kevin loves the country and his horses, preferring his own space in the vast and beautiful landscape. Each time I speak with him I picture his surroundings, and it forms the basis of most of the conversation. It’s his life and his home, his horses and cattle, huge timber yards at the various bore locations all cut with a cross saw, and kilometres of fencing, his life’s work. One set of yards he built took 1,000 rails and 400 posts, all hand cut and assembled. Kevin was often at Todd River Downs as a child in school holidays, helping his Uncles Willie and Walter Smith (The Man From Arltunga), from about the age of 11 before taking up the grazing license in 1984 from Uncle Willie and making it his full-time home.






I feel so privileged to know Kevin, and now also his niece Cheryl, who like Kevin has spent her childhood years and beyond out at Todd River Downs, with Kevin and his mother (her grandmother Ada) as her companions. How lucky am I to have been able to visit Kevin again recently! Wonderful to spend a week with he and Cheryl and Janet Lane, just wonderful. Kevin was pleased when he heard Cheryl would join us for our little holiday, telling me ‘Cheryl can do the cooking, she’s a good cook.’ And boy, were we spoiled rotten, eating from daylight until dark, all conjured up by Cheryl like magic and absolutely delicious. I was too busy eating to take photos of the breakfasts with the lot and the delicacies such as steak on the bbq or barramundi for dinner, but I did get one of the fresh scones with jam and cream. Sensational!



We talked with Kevin about his horses, challenging him to remember all their names, as if that could be possible after so many of them over so many years, and now so long ago. The list I compiled over the week was long however, and each horse came with a story. Too much to write down, next visit I am taking a tape recorder for sure!
There was Silver Dollar, Cracker Jack, Lucky Lass, Chiquita the bay Arab mare from Elkedra Station, Black Bess, Flicka, Circus (a Kidman blue and white circus pony), the racehorse Prince Chicone from nearby Ambalindum Station (similar in looks to my Todd River Downs mare Bess), Dark Muse from down South , Bonza, Red Diamond, Tony, Ginger, Tuppence, Steel, Rambler, Fury, Midnight, Texan, Major, Dark Summer (out of Dark Muse), Jackeroo who was bred on Todd River Downs and went to Alice Springs to race, the chestnut Commodore, a grey Arab stallion from nearby Indiana Station who originally belonged to Baden Bloomfield, Penny Lane, Moira, and creamy mares Buttercup, Goldie and Cindy.
There was Trumby and Chariot who were ridden into the Alice Springs show for their first ever trip to town and first ever showjumping competition. They were sold after the show and were caught soon after at Salt Bore making their way home! Eddie Boy also went to the show and managed to get out of his paddock somehow and was caught at Ringwood Station also trying to return to Todd River Downs. Tommy Doolan, stockman at Andado Station, left a grey Arab Stallion at Kevin’s, and well-known horse stuntman Tom Willoughby had a piebald mare from Todd River Downs. There were the piebald horses Magpie, Ranger and Cattleman from up Mt Riddock way originally owned by Baden Bloomfield. The coloured horses on Todd River Downs came originally from Deep Well Station.
There were also the treasured blue heelers Blue and Tim, the cats Manager and Slipper, and Kadaitcha the black cat who used to catch mice and pile them up, his record being 16 in the pile. He also used to sit and swish his tail to attract the attention of the bats then spring up and catch them, with his record being 3 piled up at once.
The sights and sounds and experience of being at Todd River Downs with Kevin are barely able to be conveyed by my photos and commentary in this post, but it’s the best I can do to share at least an impression. I hope to visit again before too long.






Kevin’s father Taffy Pick has a bridge crossing in Alice Springs named after him, and his grandparents Topsy and William Smith were well-known identities in Arltunga and Alice Springs. Remains of the stone house in which they lived are at Arltunga, which Topsy was forced to leave when William died. Janet and I also visited the now historic reserve of Arltunga (the first settlement in the NT), beautiful scenery and so much history to see and experience, I highly recommend a visit. We camped at the Artlunga Pub, what a brilliant finish to our trip, hot showers, great food and coffee, cold beer, and excellent company.




