4th Light Horse Regiment

Memorial Association

Sandy “The War Horse”

Sandy, also known as the War Horse, represents every Australian horse that served overseas in WW1. From the 136,000 sent overseas he was the only to be brought back home.  

The Australian War Memorial website is a mine of information for those seeking to learn more about Sandy.

Described as a well-mannered horse with a gentle personality.  He was donated to the war effort by Francis O’Donnell from Tallangatta in northeast Victoria and was trained for the Light Horse at the Maribyrnong Remount Depot. Sandy was shipped to Egypt where he became Maj Gen Sir William Bridges’ mount.  

(Bridges, born in Scotland and migrated to Australia, had served with the British army in South Africa.  In January 1909 he became Australia's first chief of the general staff and after being involved in the founding Australia's first military college, Duntroon, he became its first Commandant. Bridges travelled to Egypt with the first Australian contingent and was involved in the planning for the Gallipoli campaign. His division was the first ashore at ANZAC Cove on 25 Apr 1915.  He argued for immediate evacuation, owing to what he saw as a hopeless situation due to the ANZAC troops being landed at the wrong location.  But they stayed.  On 15 May during one of his regular visits to the firing line, a sniper's bullet severed his femoral artery and he died three days later on board a hospital ship. His dying wish was that Sandy be returned to Australia at “wars end” to live out the rest of his days. Bridges became the only Australian killed in WW1 to have his remains returned to Australia.  He is buried at Duntroon.)

We are told that Sandy was among the handful of horses landed at Gallipoli.  (They would have been useful on the relativity flat plains of the intended landing site. They were only a hindrance on the narrow beach at what became ANZAC Cove.) After being transported away from the fighting and then the loss of Bridges, Sandy was kept in Egypt in the care of Capt Leslie Whitfield of the Australian Army Veterinary Corps.  Then he and Whitfield were transferred to France during Mar 1916.  In Oct 1917 Senator George Pearce, Minister for Defence, called for Sandy to be returned to Australia and to be put out to pasture at Duntroon.

In May 1918 the horse was sent from the veterinary hospital at Calais to the Remount Depot at Swaythling in England.  He was accompanied by Pte Archibald Jordan, who had been at the hospital since Apr 1917 and had been classed as permanently unfit for further active service.

After three months of veterinary observation, Sandy was declared free of disease.  In Sep 1918 he sailed on the freighter Booral from Liverpool, arriving in Melbourne in Nov.

Sandy was turned out to graze at the Central Remount Depot at Maribyrnong, where he saw out the rest of his days rather than face the stress of travelling to Duntroon.  In May 1923 Sandy’s increasing blindness and debility prompted the decision to have him put down.   

His head and neck were mounted and became part of the Australian War Memorial's collection. This was displayed for many years until being withdrawn due to deterioration.

And the other horses? We have heard the heart-wrenching stories but the AWM explains what really happened to the other surviving mounts.  Returning the horses to Australia was ruled out, partly because of the disease threat they posed to Australia’s livestock industry and because transporting them back would cost more than the horses were worth.

  “No, I think I’d better shoot him and tell a little lie.

    He floundered in a wombat hole and then lay down to die.

    Maybe I’ll get court martialled, but I’m damned if I’m inclined,

    To go back to Australia and leave my horse behind.”

The Light Horse poet “Trooper Bluegum” expressed what may have been a common sentiment - It would be better to see the mounts of the Light Horse shot by their riders rather than sold to the local population. From this has developed a common belief that the troopers did shoot their horses to spare them a cruel postwar existence or to become horse meat in France and Belgium.

This belief is apparently mistaken.  The AWM details the true story in the page “They shot the horses – didn’t they?”

Fit horses were distributed to other Imperial units.  In Europe others were sold to farmers.  The older and unfit horses, as assessed by veterinary staff, were shot by carefully assembled working parties.  The AWM points out that the authorities were well aware of the sentiments and the whole process was very tightly managed.

“Behind this plain bureaucratic process was a rather more heartfelt experience and there is no doubt that many Light Horsemen felt aggrieved that the horses would not be returned to Australia. There was much sadness and a sense of injustice, which some men no doubt carried for many years. For example, one regimental history written after the war refused to recount the event in detail because of the memories it evoked.”

So Sandy continues to serve Australia as an emotional reminder of all those WW1 Walers.

Developed from a talk proudly presented by 4thLHRMA member Katrina Stenton in 2025 at the Horse Trough, after our annual Pilgrimage to the Shrine.

Sandy in Egypt

The bronze sculpture in Maribyrnong Vic, commemorating Sandy and all the horses sent overseas from the Remount Depot

Sandy’s preserved head in the AWM, Canberra

The Sandy statue in Tallangatta, Vic.  (Not quite his birthplace. This in new Tallangatta.  The original town is under the waters of Lake Hume.) The statue was the final destination of the 2025 Chauvel Foundation ride by reenactment Light Horse riders throughout parts of northern Victoria and southern NSW.

 Maj Gen Sir William Throsby Bridges

Gen Bridges’ grave at Duntroon

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