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AFTER 10 years of selling Guy Fawkes brumbies the demand for the horses has almost outstripped supply. Guy Fawkes Heritage Horse Association founders Erica Jessup and Graeme Baldwin last year sold 100 of the horses caught in the Guy Fawkes National Park, west of Dorrigo. They now have just three left in their stable and are keen for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to begin its 2015 trapping operations. Ms Jessup said the actual number of horses is not the problem with an estimated 1700 running free in the park. She said the main issue is the number the NPWS traps each year.

AFTER 10 years of selling Guy Fawkes brumbies the demand for the horses has almost outstripped supply. Guy Fawkes Heritage Horse Association founders Erica Jessup and Graeme Baldwin last year sold 100 of the horses caught in the Guy Fawkes National Park, west of Dorrigo. They now have just three left in their stable and are keen for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to begin its 2015 trapping operations. Ms Jessup said the actual number of horses is not the problem with an estimated 1700 running free in the park. She said the main issue is the number the NPWS traps each year.

Depending on your point of view, brumbies are either beautiful Aussie icons or destructive feral pests. The buckskin colt was still wild. He had been captured, but no one had been able to get near him. Six years old, he was a big, stout horse. Until a few days ago he had never seen a human being. Annie Dixon was dying of a brain tumour. One of the former midwife's last wishes was to pat a wild horse. As she sat on a stool in the paddock, the colt walked up to her. She put her hands on his cheeks and patted his face. In the days that followed, he would come and stand quietly with Dixon, 59, for hours every day. "He sensed something," says Megan Hyde, manager of northern NSW's New England Brumby Sanctuary. The ailing woman and the captured horse found comfort and empathy in each other.