By Margaret Maccoll
After weeks of anxiously waiting for permission world champion show jumper Billy Raymont and his partner Tesse were given the go-ahead by the Chief Health Officer to leave Victoria last Sunday bound for Queensland with nine of the country’s best showjumping horses.
The couple will travel aboard their self-contained vehicle with a fuel capacity of 6000 litres enabling the trip without the need to stop until they isolate at their home base of Cooran combining the nine horses with 11 on their property.
“I thought it was dead in the water,“ Billy said of his attempts to return home.
“In the end we just had to do the application. They kept coming back for more information. We were told it wouldn’t happen. Then suddenly they said it was possible.“
Each year Billy travels the east coast of Australia competing and coaching, basing himself in Victoria from the end of September for the summer months during its competition season and returning home to Queensland in April for the winter months and its competition season.
This year they remained in Victoria.
They had no purpose to go back to Queensland because Covid-19 restrictions had halted showjumping competitions and coaching and they had an agreement with people with their own horses who were having a house built to stay at their house and care for all the horses.
As fate would have it their house build was delayed with the caretakers moving out on the weekend just prior to the couple’s return.
Billy said in addition to the need to care for his horses it had become financially crippling for him paying rent in Victoria, a mortgage at his Cooran property, the expense of the horses and no income from coaching. Returning to Queensland would reduce his expenses and with restrictions lessening in Queensland competitions and coaching were beginning to return.
