There’s no doubt about it, New Zealand’s Kaimanawa horses have a lot to thank the Wilson sisters for.
Since the three women began raising public awareness of the plight of the wild horses – which are mustered by the Department of Conservation every year to reduce their impact on the environment – hundreds of Kiwis have opened their hearts and homes to the equines.
“It was amazing,” says middle sister Kelly Wilson, 33, of the almost-immediate impact of their 2015 reality-style show Keeping Up with the Kaimanawas. “No horses have been sent to slaughter since!”
Graphic designer, photographer and author Kelly – who shared the limelight in the TVNZ show with sisters Vicki, 35, and Amanda, 29 – currently has seven Kaimanawas grazing on her 18-hectare property in Taupō.
With sisters Vicki (far left) and Amanda.
Despite her excitement about taming, competing and rehoming them, life has recently thrown her a curveball.
“I fell off a horse and fractured my neck, and herniated a disc in my spine,” she explains. “So I haven’t been able to ride or work horses for the last 10 months, which has been challenging.”
And no, it was not by galloping too fast or jumping too high.
“It was a stupid fall,” she admits. “A nothing fall. I was just riding bareback, then a horse cantered over the hill and spooked my horse, and I fell off.”
A braced-up Kelly grooming her horse 10 days after the fall.
Kelly spent almost five hours lying in the paddock before medics arrived and despite her injuries, she was determined to not let the pain stop her competing in the events she loves.
“At first, I only knew I’d fractured my neck. They kept discounting injuries with my lower back because the x-ray and CT scan said I was fine,” she explains.
“I ended up in a wheelchair for a few days and asked for an MRI, and they said, ‘No, you’re not acute enough for that.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t feel fine, but if I am, then can I compete my stallion?'”
The advice she received was yes – if she could run for more than 10 metres.
A week before the competition she had in mind, Kelly “sort of” managed a 10-metre run, and excitedly entered herself and her Kaimanawa stallion Atahu in an event pitting recently mustered stallions against each other in obstacle courses, freestyle and obedience classes.
“We actually came third overall!” she smiles. “But I ended up in a real state, getting so sore they finally agreed to an MRI. They said, ‘Actually, you have been really injured and you have a massive protruding disc that was misdiagnosed.’ I was in bed for most of November and December and have been rehabbing slowly ever since.”
Now Kelly’s gradually easing back into basic groundwork with her horses, and says she’s managed to sit on a horse twice – a huge joy considering she used to ride every day.
“I chose a really trusty horse I’ve had for eight years and he’s like the safest horse I own, so I knew he’d look after me,” she says.
And while dreaming about horses is taking up most of Kelly’s time right now, the ones outside in her paddock are being looked after by a team of helping hands.
“I have a really awesome girl working for me and my sisters have been helping train them as well while I’ve been out of action,” says Kelly, who, with Amanda and Vicki, first began saving Kaimanawa horses in 2012.
“It was one of the most emotional things. There must have been 70 or 80 horses sent to slaughter,” she recalls.
“Every time a slaughter truck was leaving, we were really stressed. In the end, we approached the Department of Conservation and said, ‘Look, if we finance another stock truck, can we just fill it up?’ We thought, ‘Let’s not just save two horses, but fill up a truck with as many as would fit.’ They agreed, and we ended up saving 11 horses that year.”
Kelly up close and personal with a wild colt in the Snowy Mountains, Australia.
Between them, the sisters have tamed more than 70 Kaimanawas since. Kelly also spent six months living with wild horses from 2018 to 2020, photographing herds in five countries for her best-selling book Wild Horses of the World.
“It’s been amazing,” she enthuses. “New Zealand, I would say, has some of the wildest horses in the world to work with because they all come straight from the helicopter musters and stock trucks to our properties. They’re just beautiful and are really no different to any of the ponies we had growing up, and they could be future champions.”
To learn more about the plight of our nation’s wild horses, visit kaimanawaheritagehorses.org
