It’s a feeling of accomplishment … having completed a 160km horse ride in a day through the Australian bush.
However, the Tom Quilty Gold Cup is not just about the rider. It’s also knowing that your horse has been allowed to shine, to be the best it can on the day.
In recognition of the growing popularity of horses in the Gympie-Burnett regions, Australia’s premier endurance event returns to the Mary Valley in 2026.
It will be the third time in seven years that the Stirling’s Crossing Endurance Club at Imbil is to have the honour of hosting the event.
As such, it highlights the respect that the governing body, the Australian Endurance Riders Association (AERA), holds for the region.
This is a particular honour as it will be the 60th anniversary of the Tom Quilty ride, with up to 300 riders from across Australia expected to participate.
The Tom Quilty Gold Cup, named after a legendary cattleman and horseman from the Kimberley in Western Australia, started in the Hawkesbury region of New South Wales in 1966 when a young stockman, Gabriel Stecher, an engineer from Victoria, rode bareback on his Arabian stallion Shalawi.
Since then the event has been held on a rotational basis among Australia’s states. As well as Imbil, it has been held at Kenilworth and Kilkivan throughout its history.
Right from the outset of the Quilty it was mandatory that the strictest of veterinary controls be applied to the ride, in the best interests of the horses, in order to show the budding sport as a professionally run event, and not an exercise in cruelty.
Noted bushman R.M. Williams, who was to go on and become a household name for the manufacturer of footwear, clothing and accessories, was an instigator of the event.
He wrote to his friend Tom Quilty and asked for his support for the then 100 miles ride (160km), and Quilty responded by donating $1000. This was used to make a gold cup, the prize for the winner of the event.
Since then it has been customary to award a crafted Tom Quilty belt buckle to those who complete the course.
Indeed, the Quilty buckle is why so many horse-people tackle not just the course, but the travel and preparation of horse, rider and strappers to get to the event.
Endurance riding in Australia continues to be an amateur sport, with no provision for prize money.
The original Gold Cup now resides in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, in Longreach, Queensland.
The ride, in which to complete the course is to win, is normally shared among states; however, Stirling’s Crossing stepped up at short notice to hold the event in 2023 as a consequence of Victoria being unable to complete their turn.
This was in the aftermath of Covid and wide-spread flooding.
The Tom Quilty had been held at Stirling’s Crossing in 2019, in which Imbil rider Kaylea Maher got to fulfil her dream of holding up the most coveted prize in the sport of endurance.
The event was held in South Australia in 2024, and Tasmania in 2025.
Throughout the growth of the equestrian endurance culture in the Gympie-Burnett region the name of Sample is written indelibly in the record books.
The Sample legacy to the sport started with Bob Sample and has continued through three more generations – most notably with his sons Brook and Matthew, then with grandson Matty and daughter-in-law Nikki Sample as joint winners of TQ 2025 in Tasmania.
Furthering the legacy, 12-year-old great grand daughter Taylor Grogan finished third in the junior section at the TQ 2025 in Tasmania.
SENSE OF OCCASION
The TQ 2026 committee is partnering with Gympie Regional Council in the presentation of the event, to be held over five days culminating on the 160km ride from midnight Friday, July 4, to midnight Saturday, July 5.
Planning is well under way with sponsorship and prize packages being negotiated, and a call going out for volunteers to help make this event truly memorable.
Judging of best conditioned horses in the various divisions of heavyweight, middleweight, lightweight and junior riders will take place on the Sunday morning, along with the award presentations.
As part of the 60th birthday celebrations, an Arabian endurance horse show is to be held on the Thursday morning leading up to the main event.
It is expected to be the greatest collection of purebred and derivative Arabian horses in one place this year and mark a wonderful opening to TQ 2026.
Adding to the sense of family in endurance horse-riding, there are expected to be 21 of the 23 past winners of the Quilty attending this year’s festival.
There will be an opening dinner and the AERA annual awards presentations are to be held during the week.
Nominations for TQ 2026 will open at the end of April.
A RIDE TO REMEMBER
Events such as the Tom Quilty Gold Cup pay tribute to the horse men and women, not just of Australia but from throughout the world.
Past events at Stirling’s Crossing Endurance Centre have seen riders from as far afield as the United Kingdom and a number of European countries taking part, but also from the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, South Africa and the Pacific Rim nations such as Japan, the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand.
So what is it that brings these people together? What is it that sees them travel so far and commit so much time and effort for a ride that traditionally has a midnight start as well as battling all sorts of weather conditions and terrain for the sense of completion?
It’s the question I put to AERA members and endurance stalwarts Ken and Kim Moir at Stirling’s Crossing on a Sunday morning.
For Ken, who has been around horses since the age of three, it means another chance to do something significant in his endurance career.
He took up endurance riding in 2000 and two years later completed his first ride – at Murrumba.
Now, 177 rides and 16678km later, 73-year-old Ken has completed six Tom Quilty’s out of 13 starts.
In the past 12 months he has won three 80km events as a middleweight. Added to that he has been winner of the 2013 and 2015 Queensland State Championships in the 160km events.
More recently, he came fourth on Soliloquy in the 2023 multi-day 220km ride from Winton to Longreach.
“It’s going to be a super Quilty, this one,’’ he said.
Ken didn’t get his horse through vetting in the 2024 and 2025 events in South Australia and Tasmania despite being well placed on the early legs of the courses.
He is looking past those rides and is focusing on some young horses doing well.
“I’m a bit older but still trying to achieve a really good finishing place in the Quilty.
“In some events, I’ve tried to do much better. My objective now is to do as well as the horse can do.
“I would like to prove that these horses are as good as I think they are.’’
With the right training, the right food and the right treatment, that should happen.
Yet in endurance you can do everything you physically can, and it still doesn’t happen on the day.
“That’s the hard thing about endurance,’’ Ken said.
“It’s the thing about sport. It’s how it turns out on the day.
“No matter what happens you need that element of luck.
“This is the way the sport of endurance is. You are always thinking about the next one.
“It can be devastating on the day if it doesn’t happen.
“That can be because something untoward happens. Something that is not your fault … that is out of your control.
“It’s a matter of not only bringing the horse on for the day, but to do it on the day. The horse has to be motivated.’’
For Kim, who claims to have never ridden a horse but has held many, it has been a matter of getting very good at managing endurance events.
When Ken took up endurance they only had one horse and Kim avoided going to any event until about 2006 when they moved to the Gympie area.
With the move came considerably more horses, and she was not able to stay still or quiet for too long.
“I wandered over to the admin area and asked if I could do anything to help. I can tell you, I no longer have to worry about sitting still.’’
Kim is the AERA secretary and as a Queensland Endurance Riders Association (QERA) management committee member, has responsibility for the QERA calendar and is Facebook moderator.
As president of the Stirling’s Crossing Endurance Club, treasurer of the Widgee Endurance and Trail Riding Club, and having been secretary or treasurer of the Far A Way club at Imbil for about 10 years until 2018, Kim’s life and home seem to have been consumed by horses and things to do with them.
“Even on holiday, we find horses,’’ she has said. “A big year for me was 2019 when Stirling’s hosted TQ19 – I think it was about a month later that I stopped waking up in the middle of the night thinking I had forgotten to do something.’’
Now, the running of a Quilty means the event had to be comfortable for everyone, Kim said.
“Facilities should be up to scratch.
“They should be like this,’’ she said, pointing to the Stirling’s Crossing grounds.
“We’ve got the countryside, we’ve got the venue. We just have to get it all happening on the day.
“We’ve had some significant horse people here in the Mary Valley and the South-east Queensland region.’’
From all of the countless hours watching horses and riders, Kim has learned that you need to be calm around the horse, especially when it is being saddled or fitted with shoes.
“You can be really worried or concerned about a horse but you should never be agitated or raise your voice around them.’’
It’s a matter of horses having the ability to be very intuitive about people‘s demeanour. They can sense the rider’s approach from a distance, as well as judge body language, breathing and heart rate.
They have an exceptional sense of touch to detect weight shifts and subtle movements, and have keen hearing as well as a highly developed sense of smell to recognise their rider.
Ken’s best Quilty ride was when he went to Manilla in New South Wales with a horse that had opened his front knees up 10 days before setting off on the road journey.
One knee had to be stitched and the other had a wound.
“He went down on his knees and I took him straight to the surgery at Cooroy where he was stitched up.
“The vet did an operation and stitched up his knee while we were just outside the surgery. He did a brilliant job.
“The knee is not an easy thing to stitch because it’s continually stretching.
“The first thing I did when I got to Manilla was to get the head vet to have a look to see if I could get a start.
“We trotted him around and he said it was fine but I was never sure whether he would complete the course.’’
The horse was Eskdale Shakago Bae, otherwise known as Bob. The ride was in 2010 and Ken finished a highly-credible 12th.
“There needs to be a feeling of complete intimacy … an understanding with the horse.
“When you start out with a problem and things turn out well, then it’s a great feeling.
“It’s a feeling of accomplishment.
“Yet it’s not about yourself as the rider. It’s knowing that you have allowed your horse to shine, to be the best it can be on the day.’’
So what drives people such as Ken and Kim to be so involved in endurance riding – not just on the day but throughout the weeks, months and even years leading up to events.
There is the need to keep up with rules and regulations in the running of events, the shifting requirements around the health of horses, then the arranging of sponsors as well as volunteers to make the actual event seamless.
Luckily for Kim, she appreciates the road journeys through the Australian countryside. These have included South Australia and Tasmania in the past couple of years for the Tom Quilty Gold Cups.
Yet she was the support person for Ken on the Winton to Longreach ride – that involved having the horse float and their supplies ahead of horse and rider at each rest stop and vet check at 40km intervals along the 220km trail.
“You get caught up in it,’’ Kim said. “You get caught up in the running of the event.
“We’re about to host our third Quilty here at Stirling’s Crossing.
“The expectations around what a Quilty will be changes from year to year, just like the conditions.
“Once you know you have a great course and a good ride base, the main thing is to ask yourself if enough has been done to alleviate the consideration of risks.
“With a horse event there can be at least a dozen things that don’t work or go according to plan, so you’re continually changing the plan.
“One of our most successful events was not just the number of entries but the number of completions – and the fact there were no horses admitted to the vet hospital.
“We want horses to be given the opportunity to do well, but not be compromised.
“When most people come to a ride, they want to get through. If they’re going to be successful, then it means the horse is going to be okay.’’
With endurance there are many checks on the welfare of the horses and, in some cases, the riders.
You cannot win unless you complete the course. That’s the simple truth.
The rider may be the first one to finish but if the horse is not fit to continue after the final vet check then it is regarded as failure to complete.
“There’s a lot of things to think about,’’ Kim said. “Every aspect of it.
“I’m always thinking about what can be done to refine the details. It’s a matter of knowing the issues – whether there’s enough drinking water on the course, whether someone misses a directional arrow.
“Even the king cannot control the weather.’’
At the 2022 Tom Quilty at Tooraweenah in northern New South Wales, it was wet.
Everyone knew it was going to be wet and participants were glad to have completed the course.
“It was a hard Quilty,’’ Ken said. “It was the longest time I took to complete a 160 but the horse got through in really good condition.’’
The first Tom Quilty in 1966 was almost stopped by the local council because of concern for horse welfare. But the event has evolved in the 60 years.
“We are so much more aware of risk management,’’ Kim said. “In those days they rode without helmets, sometimes without shoes or saddles.
“The horses had just come out of the paddock. Now they are transitioned because of their age and are progressed through the various distances.
“Changes have been made around horse and rider health and welfare.
“The vet checking process is critical.
“We were part of the Senate investigation into horse sports.
“Our sport was very much at the forefront of that investigation, so a lot of of the rules that we have were given a good mark by the Senate. We were already doing it.’’
With endurance, it’s a matter of building horses up for the distances, waiting for them to be a certain age to do a certain level of competition.
There are so many vets involved and measuring horses at every stage – checking that the horses are fit to start and fit to continue.
You can have vets on the course as well at ride base, and they will inspect a horse at any stage of an event.
“They know what the horses are being asked to do,’’ Ken said, “and this acquaints them with what the courses are like.
“It gives an understanding of what riders have had to do, the terrain that has to be covered and the issues that they may need to overcome.
“Most riders are looking for some feedback as to how they think the horse is travelling.
“So many riders know how the horses are going but then there are times when you don’t, and it’s not until you come into the vet check that you realise it.’’
Horses have been integral with human development around the world, and endurance riding is deeply linked through history with the idea of getting from Point A to Point B.
The fact that three Tom Quilty Gold Cups have been designated to Stirling’s Crossing and the Mary Valley in quick succession pays testament to the management committee as well as the community support.
“Leadership is critical,’’ Ken said. “We struggle across the sport to have enough volunteers.
“People are busy with jobs, with family commitments … and then you add onto that being a volunteer.
“A lot are those who have moved out of the active part of the sport.
“Most people aim to ride every event on the calendar, but there are times when they can’t.
“Many come and volunteer without needing to know everything that goes into it. That can be as simple as taking registrations, ensuring the time books are collected.’’
Ken paid tribute to Stirling’s Crossing owner Matt Sample, who leads by putting everything into place that is needed.
“It’s what he aimed for, that it would be managed by the club members.
“He wants a certain standard and leads by example.’’
It is often a case of people not being conscious of what needs doing – or in what way they can help with an event.
“People on the committee get the benefit of helping rides happen,’’ Kim said. “There’s a certain level of satisfaction in seeing an event so successful.
“We are hoping that as many people as possible get themselves and their horses to compete in 2026.
“If they’ve been thinking about it, this is the year to be involved. It’s a generational event.
“It’ll be another 10 years before you get a chance to compete … and complete.’’
Isn’t that the aim of any sport – to be involved, to enjoy the competition and to reflect on the journey?
