I was talking with a colleague months ago about the opportunity to volunteer and go overseas to help with horse welfare projects. She asked me if I was aware of the Prince Fluffy Kareem (PFK) project. I definitely wasn’t! I was given the Facebook page address and headed over to have a look.

It turns out the PFK project is a charity that although UK registered, is based in Cairo, Egypt. And what do they do?

“Our mission is to help the animals working by the pyramids of Giza We treat mainly horses but also lots of camels and donkeys.”

It turns out that these animals are regularly used to take tourists and even Egyptian locals around the pyramids. They also travel the surrounding desert, are used as transport and even pull carts full of local produce to sell.

Sadly, many of the pyramid horses are in incredibly poor body condition. According to the PFK, many of the owners that they work with have very little income and are also illiterate. They struggle to support themselves, their family and also relatives. The horses, donkeys and camels utilised are working animals, often starting from a young age. Lack of income means that these animals suffer from lack of veterinary and farrier visits.

A lack of knowledge regarding the grazing habits of horses also exacerbates the problem. The horses are on high grain diets and often suffer from colic, ulcers and laminitis, with their owners being ignorant about these issues.

Prince Fluffy Kareem works to educate owners as well as see to the welfare needs of these animals.

“Every owner gets several chances, but if they show us repeatedly that they are not interested in caring for their animals they can no longer leave horses with us. PFK offers all treatment free of charge, whether that is feeding a horse for two months, x-rays, wound care, farrier work or surgeries. Most important of all, we educate. We can’t change the financial situation in Egypt, but we can teach the owners to better understand their animals’ needs.”

I love the sound of setups like this. They treat the immediate problem but also educate to stop it from reoccurring. Want to help?  You can donate via their site.

I was completing a training day for work recently. It focused on developing assessment tools for units of a course. This seemed timely as we are planning to offer a new horse course in the future. This lead me to the training.gov.au site to seek out the training package for this new course. This in turn lead me to My Skills and particularly my skills for equine industry in Australia.

As you search on the My Skills website, you’re able to enter a term or course name. So, if you enter horse, it’ll show you all the qualifications on offer in Australia relating to horses. Let’s take a look at the new Certificate III in Horse Breeding as an example.

“This qualification provides a vocational outcome for persons operating in a horse breeding or stud farm operation.”

When you click on this, you get a myriad of information:

• Average course fees as well as duration
• Description of the course
• Training providers of this course
• Details about financial assistance and VET fee loans
• Details on apprenticeships and traineeships
• Career pathways details relating to animals

Now as you go to explore career options, you can see how the current industry looks for people similarly qualified. You can find out many things about the industry it’ll entitle you to work in.  So you can base your decision to get qualified on this.

If you want to work with horses in Australia and to also gain a qualification relating to this, check out this site.  You can broadly search for horses.  Or, you can make the search more specific if you want to know about breeding or performance courses, for example.

I love discovering setups for particular facets of the equine industry. This one specifically relates to bloodstock agents within Australia. It is known as the Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia Limited or the FBAA. Their Twitter tagline is:

“Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia was formed to maintain, improve & develop the standards, status & services of Bloodstock Agents throughout Australia”

On their site they detail the industry code of conduct, which is also downloadable as a pdf file.

Resources are provided in the form of links to the principal racing authorities in each state of Australia, industry bodies relating to racing, horses and breeding as well as race clubs. These are also for each state of Australia.

It was back in 1988 that the Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia Limited was formed. This was created to “improve and develop standards, status and services of Bloodstock Agents throughout Australia…” It was also created to put across and promote the views of the members of the FBAA.

The 27 accredited members can:

• provide aid in selling and purchasing bloodstock
• help with valuations of bloodstock
• consult and manage
• provide matings advice
• help with insurance, shipping and other matters relating to bloodstock

Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia Limited

This setup is a great point of contact for people who need advice relating to thoroughbred racing and breeding setups. If you want to become a member of the FBAA, you need to have at least 5 years industry involvement and 2 years operating a bloodstock agency. If this is a field you’re in or plan to be a part of in the future, be sure to make a note of the FBAA.

“When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.” ― William Shakespeare