HORSES KILLED ON VOYAGE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25244, 24 July 1947, Page 4

HORSES KILLED ON VOYAGE

STORMY BLUFF-SYDNEY CROSSING

SCOTCH TWEED, DESTINE, BATTLE AREA

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) MELBOURNE. July 23. Three racehorses with good records in New Zealand were battered to death in violent storms which buffeted the freighter Waitaki in her seven-day trip from Bluff to Melbourne. The horses were Scotch Tweed, Battle Area, and Destine. Seamen described the crossing as the worst they had ever known. Soon after leaving Bluft the ship ran into a storm, and the cargo of 12 horses and 50 sheep was tossed about in its stalls. • At midnight on the second day out it was discovered that two horses had burst from their stalls and were lying on the deck struggling and kicking madly in their efforts to rise. It took three hours to get Battle Area back into the wrecked stall. Destine could not be moved. Both horses were dead the next morning. Two days later Scotch Tweed went down, and several other horses broke from their stalls and plunged about in the confined space of the poop. Scotch Tweed died soon afterwards. One seaman was swept across the deck when a lifeline gave way, but clung to the hatch-covers and saved himself from being washed overboard. Other seamen had narrow escapes when working among the flying hooves of the distressed horses.