Shane is a happy man on his bobcat - and even happier with little Olivia
With only a few events left for the season I must say I’m really looking forward to a break! We have been flat out at Bimbadeen Park this last month with eventing and racehorses in work. Normally the second half of the year is a little quieter as far as the number of racehorses we have in work goes but Shane seems to have forgotten how to say the word no! Or maybe it never really was in his vocabulary!
In order to combat the multitude of horses that we have in work, Niki posted an ad for another employee and Rach and I were handed the task of sorting through the applicants and deciding who we thought would fit in with our crazy little family!
While working at Bimbadeen Park is loads of fun, we actually work quite hard. On top of working around 50 horses a day, we also have 35 boxes and 25 yards to keep in order. The racehorses live in the boxes and all have to go on the walker in the morning before being worked. Boxes are cleaned every day and the yards every second day. I do the morning feed run while Shane is busy working the racehorses. On average a feed run will take 2 and a half hours and all the horses are fed twice a day. In fact the feeding job is almost a full time job by itself!
Once the racehorses are worked its on to the eventers. There are normally two or three people riding at a time to help get through all the young horses. Meanwhile those who are not riding or tacking and untacking can be found on the mower or trimming up racehorses or any other general maintenance that needs to be done. Everyone is expected to help out with the day to day running of the property and so we all take it in turn to work our horses. At the end of the day it’s time to clean the numerous saddles and bridles that we have.
There are always plenty of saddles to clean
If Shane isn’t on a horse he can generally be found on the bobcat trying to fix something. He is very proud of his building capabilities and will happily show anyone who has the time. We are currently busy concreting the edges of the driveway and planting new trees. Although for some strange reason Shane always chooses to do this the day before we are heading off to competition!
We quite often joke that you need to be a mind reader if you are to work here. Shane tends to change his mind a lot but doesn’t always remember to fill the rest of us in. He also spends a lot of the time on the phone talking to trainers and owners and so gets distracted quite easily. But as we head into summer and more daylight hours we also spend some afternoons by the pool or playing cricket in the back yard. As usual Shane is quite competitive and will always find a way to have a competition event when we are just throwing around a frisbee!
We are currently still looking for staff members for next year so if you have a good sense of humour and aren’t afraid to work hard, drop us a line!
