Michael Chaplin

01:15 AM on September 01, 2011

I am so pleased that you have written this as it was my wish that this horse went to a good home and also to a home that would use him. Ong Bak for me was the horse I had searched for all my life and eventually found him in an ugly colt that was on deaths door. The first time I saw Ong bak was in a yard of horses that I rescued from starvation with the help of its owners. Upon getting these horses onto some good feed and a bit of TLC they came back to life and we got the full picture of what they could do. After training most of the horses for Sarah & Jeremy they agreed to me taking on Ong Bak. So after all the others were done and sold, I started on Training him, our first visit to the yards ended up with him in the property next to ours with about three hundred acres of scrub. So with that I thought he is gone and I doubt I will see him again, but I ended up getting one of the Stallions out and mustering him from the scrubby hills of tent hill. This is when I saw what he could really do. He galloped over some of the toughest terrain bounding and leaping away from me at every chance (what movement). Long story short, we got him back and started working with him slowly and over the next twelve months I had the most comfortable willing Stallion I had ever ridden. Over the next couple of years we created a bond that was very close and was tested most recently during the floods of early 2011 he saved my heard of mares by trusting me.

Picture this, rain falling out of the sky, flood waters at the back of the house about to break its banks for the second time in 2 days. Me running across a k m of sodden ground and bog in shorts, bare feet and a fluoro yellow rain coat to get my horses out. We had already had over 12 inches and it was predicted to be another 10 coming that day. We had a bag of cloths each the laptop and an extra hard drive. We had said that that?s all we need and we were ready to lose the lot when that rain hit. Well it had stated raining at 3 in the morning and I had not slept, all I wanted to do is get my horses out.

The picture I painted was me at 6am with my neighbour watching from the main road. I go to the yard and went straight for my saddle and fencing pliers, I set all that up in the yard and was ready now to go and catch my frightened horses. As I turned with my lead rope and determination in hand who should come galloping up to the fence with a sliding stop any reining nut would be proud of it was my boy. He was there to with bells on saying dad lets go I am ready. To my amazement he stood with lead on the ground and me running around like a piece of yellow plastic with legs. So we are saddled now and I am on with my thongs on, spurs, raincoat and hat, stock whip in one hand and pliers in the other, he was probably saying "Dad you look very amusing but I will humour you". Off we went me thinking great this will take about ten minute and well be fine. What was I thinking? I cut the fence in the place I thought it would be most desirable for the horses to go, I lead out and soon realised that my little mob was not going to go through one panel of fence, so off we go to cut more fence. Four sections of fence later they were through. Be aware it is still piddling down and the creek is now a river that is about 90 metres wide and about to break its bank again and cut off our escape.

Meanwhile my free thinking horses had had an idea of their own and decided to go galloping off in the direction of a mud patch of about 300 metres square and at its deepest spot about 1.8 metres, and who knows what else had been washed up and stuck in it. Well they were in the middle of it weren?t they, so in we went after them and somehow we turned them round and spent the next 25 minutes pushing them through swollen creeks, flooded paddocks, downed fences and a generally spooky event. I closed the gate on them and just wanted to fall down with exhaustion, and there was Ong back behind me nudging me in the back as if to say ?Dad they are getting away lets go?. Does anyone know what it?s like to get on a horse in knee deep mud and water after a draining couple of days? Let me tell you I had three goes at it! To finish my little story, all the horses got out with only one small cut on the young colt and they all spent the next 4 weeks all together in the neighbour?s property until I got some fences together and some grass grew back. I would not have been able to do this with a horse of lesser character and spirit. I will always hold this horse in my thoughts as the best horse I have had the pleasure of riding.