Right now, there are 15 harness racing stallions’ mid-air making their way back to North America.
These stallions, including Bettors Delight, Always B Miki, Lazarus and Sweet Lou, will eventually land in Chicago around 18 hours after their departure from Sydney, Australia, yesterday.
Joining the abovementioned shuttle stallions are Lather Up, Pastor Stephen, American Ideal, McWicked, Capt Midnight, He’s Watching, Captain Crunch, Downbytheseaside, Bettors Wish, What The Hill and Creatine.
Getting these top-quality pacers and trotters across the other side of the world for the North American breeding season has been no easy task.
Transporting horses via airfreight is a challenge, and then throw in a global pandemic that has caused further chaos to the system.
With 45 years in global horse transport, IRT have faced challenges but none like this according to Managing Director Chris Burke.
“It’s one of those things that most people think is pretty straight forward but there is a lot of movement under the water like a duck swimming so to speak and is tough in a normal pre-Covid time,” said Burke.
“There are only 20 airlines that take horses and only five that come to Australia and go in the direction we need the horses to go.
“Put amongst this quarantining and tests for the horses, with Covid we are also testing the people, vets and grooms, that accompany the horses.”
On top of this, IRT and connections faced another battle when the usual carrier could not fulfil this particular journey for these stallions.
“We usually use Cathay Pacific and we received an email on January 1 that they would not be taking horse freight until March and cancelling all services,” said Burke.
“Compounded on top of that, there is a limited amount of freight on cargo planes.
“With passenger flights reduced, freight is taking up space on cargo planes so we are caught in a difficult time.
“Qantas booked to take these stallions out and we are fortunate to have worked with them to find solutions for this trip.
“Majority of aircrafts head to Asia then head to Europe and the US and with Qantas the horses will fly to Anchorage (Alaska) and direct to Chicago, so it’s just one stop and somewhere around 18 hours.
“This is a one-off trip we have created for these stallions so there is a lot that happens behind the scenes to make a trip like this happen in these times.”
The stallions departed Sydney airport on Wednesday, and all loaded well according to IRT Director Selwyn Wallace.