At 14, Ruby Wild would rather demonstrate her connection with horses than explain it.
Whether she's prompting the more than 500-kilogram animal to lie down or waiting for the mare to be still enough to stand on her back, the bond between the teenager and her horses is undeniable.
"If you don't have a strong connection, it's hard to do anything," Ruby said.
But her herd of four aren't regular domestic horses, they were once wild brumbies.
"We grew up together because she was only little. She was only two when we got her," she said.
Her mum Kylie Wild said, while Ruby was supervised, her young daughter had a natural intuition with horses.
"Ruby and Gidget built this connection together and it never really crossed my mind that she was a wild brumby," Ms Wild said.
Ruby's love of brumbies is one she shares with her cousin, 17-year-old Brooke Wild.
"Brumbies, they're definitely underestimated, that's for sure," Brooke said.
Loading...
"Brumbies are just so, so versatile, anything you put them to: jumps, cattle, whatever. They'll just pick it up like that and they just learn so quickly."
Where did brumbies come from?
Horses came to Australia on the First Fleet in 1788. Escaped animals become the country's first brumbies.
Over time, other domestic breeds have gone feral and now descendants of thoroughbreds, stock, quarter and heavy horses can be found in the wild.
It is estimated there are more than 400,000 brumbies in Australia and when concentrated in high numbers, their hard hooves pose a risk to the environment and native species.
Horse trainer Anna Uhrig runs a brumby rehoming camp in south-east Queensland, using horses trapped in local forests and from central Queensland.
"We can't solve the brumby problem but we're doing what we can," Ms Uhrig said.
"It's a very small part of the puzzle: the amount of horses we rehome. It's not thousands but I think the work adds quality of life to those horses."
Ecologist Dave Berman has been managing brumby populations for 40 years across the country.
For most of the past decade, he has managed the brumby herds of Tuan and Toolara state forests, which consist of pine plantations and native species north of Noosa.
The growing population has brought wild horses close to roads, putting drivers at risk.
"We catch them and find homes for them to reduce the risk of collisions between horses and people," Dr Berman said.
"Usually it's the horses that get killed, but eventually, you know, there will be people killed.
"Originally in about 2009 there were about four horses killed per year, we removed all the horses regularly crossing the road and then there were no collisions, so we showed that worked."
What's a brumby rehoming camp?
Ms Uhrig's 10-day intensive camp attracts participants from all over the country to choose, train and adopt a brumby.
"Yarding, drafting and then coming to these yards is totally new for the brumbies so it can be quite scary for them," Ms Uhrig said.
In less than two weeks, some of the horses go from not letting a human within 100 metres to being ridden.
"I just love seeing the transformation and I love giving people the opportunity to learn those skills," Ms Uhrig said.
"I could break in a brumby continuously and I still wouldn't be able to rehome as many as we can through the camps."
Melissa Teunis's brumby Valour will join her herd of domestic horses used for equine therapy.
"I've loved horses forever and I just wanted the opportunity to start [training] my own [horse]," she said.
"It's the perfect place to come. Anna is amazing and just knows the process and talks and walks you through every step."
But Ms Uhrig said rehoming brumbies wouldn't work everywhere.
"In terms of the whole management debate, it's not a closed book. We don't have the answers necessarily," Ms Uhrig said.
"There's been some research done in some targeted areas and we think we have the answers and we can apply those but generally it's a nationwide issue and the management implications are different in each area."
How are the horses trapped?
Dr Berman saidthe trapping process was slow and targeted brumbies who grazed near or regularly crossed roads.
"We use electric fences and we build a really large electric fence area that can be up to 4 kilometres long," he said.
"We'll build that around the horses and gradually make it smaller and then get them into a laneway and then into hessian panels, and then into panel yards."
He said patience and a respect for the animals were required.
"If you put too much pressure on, they go. They'll go through the fence anyway," he said.
Giving the horses a second chance can take weeks and sometimes months.
It's an emotional process for Dr Berman who creates a strong connection with the brumbies during the process.
"They're wonderful animals," he said.
A national problem
Brumby management differs across the country.
Dr Berman said rehoming was becoming more common, but wasn't the solution alone.
"In a lot of other parts of Australia where populations are getting too much, horses can be shot from the air or the ground," he said.
In New South Wales's largest national park, Kosciuszko, the government is culling horses in the hundreds.
In 2022, the NSW government estimated about 18,000 horses lived in the park, with a population range between 14,501 and 23,535 horses.
Under the state government management plan, more than 15,000 brumbies could be killed or rehomed to reduce the population to 3,000 by mid-2027, to the despair of some of the locals.
Meanwhile, a Kosciuszko brumby rehoming program has been suspendedafter hundreds of horse carcasses were found on a property near Wagga Wagga.
Further north in NSW, the officers from the Local Land Services have a different approach, working with landholders and rescue groups to trap and rehome wild horses near Grafton.
"It's not just about safety for people. It's the safety of the horses as a number of them have been hit on the road," senior biosecurity officer Tiffany Felton said.
Loading...
"But it's not just that, they're a hard-hoofed animals so they do, and especially in these dry times, start affecting the waterways and in environmentally sensitive areas."
In the past three years more than 130 have been captured and rehomed under the state government's Biosecurity Act.
"Previously, there have been probably far harsher approaches to wild horse management, and that's not what the community wanted," said Louise Orr of North Coast Local Land Services.
Untapped potential
After just seven days at brumby camp, some of the horses are almost unrecognisable for participants, including Melissa Teunis.
"It's amazing to think that when we got here last Friday, he'd never been touched," Ms Teunis said.
"It shows you how resilient they are and just how willing —oh this will make me cry— how willing they are to try for us and, and give us all that they have."
Lilly Anderson, 14, could put a saddle on her horse Rain by day four of the course and three days later, she was able to ride the animal.
"Like, for me, that's incredible. That's like just gone so quickly. But she's also so just amazing," Lilly said.
The camp is the first stage of the horses transitioning to domestic life with more time and effort required after they leave.
"Once you give them a chance, they'll do anything for you," Lilly said.
"She's just so smart to catch on and she'll do anything for lucerne as well. Loves a bit of food."
Past participants of the camp said the biggest challenge with rehoming a brumby was fighting off the temptation to buy another.
"It's been hard but it gets better. The highs are really high," Ava Cloherty said.
Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm on Sundayor onABC iview.
Posted, updated
