11/11/2026
Between 1914 and 1918, more than 136,000 Australian Waler horses were loaded onto transport ships and sent overseas to serve in the First World War. They endured scorching desert heat, artillery fire, and freezing mud, carrying our Light Horsemen and gun carriages across Gallipoli, the Middle East, and the Western Front.
When the guns fell silent in 1918, strict quarantine restrictions and transport costs meant that practically every single surviving war horse was abandoned overseas.
Out of 136,000 horses that left our shores, only one single horse was ever brought home to Australian soil.
His name was Sandy, the trusted charger of Major General Sir William Bridges.
When General Bridges was mortally wounded by a Turkish sniper at Gallipoli in May 1915, his dying wish was that his horse Sandy be looked after and returned home.
Sandy was shipped to Egypt, then to France, serving loyally behind the battlefields. In 1917, the Australian Government honoured Bridges' final request, declaring Sandy a living memorial to the sacrifice of all 136,000 Australian horses that gave their lives for our nation.
Arriving back in Melbourne in 1918, Sandy lived out his final peaceful years grazing in lush green paddocks at the Maribyrnong Remount Depot. Old Diggers would travel from across the country simply to lean over the fence, stroke his grey mane, and weep for the mates and horses they had to leave behind in the sand.
When Sandy passed away in 1923, he was buried with full military honours—a sacred symbol of the Australian animals who gave everything beside our soldiers.
Lest We Forget.
Did you know that out of 136,000 Australian war horses, only Sandy ever saw an Australian paddock again?
SOURCE: Australian War Memorial (Major General Sir William Bridges and Sandy Collection, AWM PR00547); Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918; Department of Defence Historical Records.
photo credit - Australian war Memorial - Public domain
