Waler Volunteers
Angela Tiede, February 2026. Image: Waler gelding Fisher and I on our first ride, Tylden Victoria 2006
My Waler gelding Fisher and I have been volunteering for Walers for twenty years this year, an anniversary to note I reckon. Neither of us had planned this out for ourselves, we met first in December 2005, and it went from there.
Our first official public volunteering was at the Collingwood Children’s Farm in 2006, talk about diving in headfirst! He was a natural and I took my lead from him, as I have with everything we have done together. Born on Newhaven Station NT and rescued as an approximately 2-year-old from meat works holding paddocks in Peterborough SA he is now probably around 23/24 years old, and still the one who quietly influences all.
We formed a riding partnership, well he went along with it pretty willingly anyway, attending riding club events and agricultural shows and stockman’s challenges and just generally riding out and about on and around my farm. My first horse, his first rider, with many adventures along the way. In later years he was a volunteer at equine assisted therapy classes and clinics and has always been a great companion and educator of my various foals. Currently he tries to keep order with three mares who spend their days keeping an eye out for stallions Pinjee and Virtuoso to gawk at. My first Waler volunteer, he has always shown up as his best version of himself, leading by example.
In my experience, volunteering always returns so much more than is given, but only when it is freely given. Not given out of a sense of duty or obligation or agenda, just willingly contributing whatever is necessary to support like-minded others in a common endeavour. This is certainly how I view my relationship with project Waler: rescuing and providing a safe home for Walers, educating myself and others about Walers, supporting events and ideas to help provide a more secure future for Walers, all in partnership with my Walers. Always trying to do my best. Fisher has been a key part of this journey as somehow our adventure keeps finding new paths and it most definitely is not me planning it all out.
Take my last notable venture for example, the capture of 20 Walers on Todd River Downs NT in 2019, with three mares Bess, Hale and Topsy coming home to me and gelding Tommy joining us later. This arose thanks to Fisher’s volunteer work in a friend’s Equine Assisted Therapy business. She told me he did not just feature in her classes, he ran the classes. He inspired such interest in Walers that the next thing I knew fund raising was in full swing and we were on our way to trap horses. Perhaps it is just keeping an open mind that allows these things to come about, I prefer to believe it is Fisher and I being such committed Waler Volunteers that others want to join in. Much to my surprise, even the Waler Horse Society of Australia showed up a few years later, approaching me to join and register my TRD horses as foundation Walers.
I am always therefore disappointed when I hear the words ‘we are just volunteers’, mostly used as an excuse or defence for not giving it your all, doing your best, fully and willingly committing. I mean if you volunteer then you are in, because if you are not, don’t volunteer. Is that too black and white? Set boundaries and guidelines to ensure the effort expended does not undermine your reason and passion for the cause you are volunteering for of course but communicate those clearly up front otherwise contrary behaviour just erodes trust and undermines all good intentions. This is especially true for groups organised around a stated purpose when expectations can so easily fall short of actual behaviour.
AI via an internet search reveals that: ‘Volunteering involves giving time freely for the common good, offering a chance to learns new skills, meet people, and support causes…It is generally unpaid and provides significant personal satisfaction, social connection, and community.’ This is certainly my experience, with all the highs and lows over the last two Waler volunteering decades.
We can choose to volunteer or not, but in general our horses can’t, somehow, we just expect they will go along with us. Not one of my Walers has ever communicated to me that they are not really trying because after all they are just volunteers. They are invested in human partnership, and they give it their all, as I have seen time and again with my wild bred Walers, so much harder for them than domestically bred horses. So even if that behaviour is purely for survival, we can surely take from it that if you are in you are in, and if you are out, you are out. Actions say it all. Volunteering without genuine and transparent intent won’t help any cause and for the sake of trying to ensure our Walers are around for future generations we must aim high.
Waler gelding Tommy is terrified of people, having been overwhelmed by those who first homed him after capture, but he absolutely gives it his all whenever I ask anything of him. Bess, who could not look directly at anyone for such a long time, is now a willing riding horse. Indi, who was tortured by the people she was sent to by her new owners for starting under saddle has tried her hardest to be the trusting girl she once was, overcoming that experience as best she can. Every one of my horses has a story to tell and it is from them that I have learned that actions ALWAYS speak louder than words.
