Newspaper Article – “Covering the Field” is Big Business for Bill Reeves

‘COVERING THE FIELD’ IS BIG BUSINESS FOR BILL REEVES

By MARY HOLLYWOOD

Most New Zealanders study a weekly racing guide to try and pick a winner. When the founder of Reeves Transport, Hastings, checks the runners it is big business.

Bill Reeves makes no idle promise when he claims he “covers the field” from Auckland to Invercargill. His fleet of horse floats now totals some 28 – a good third of the commercial horse transport in New Zealand.

Mr Reeves’ full time association with the transport industry goes back more than 35 years. He set up on his own account in 1946, just one year after he returned from four years in POW camps in Poland and Germany.

Today, in partnership with Earl Cunningham of the Cunningham Carrying Company, Lower Hutt, Bill Reeves and his three daughters, operate Majestic Horse Floats – licensed blood stock carriers.

The operation stretches beyond New Zealand’s shoreline these days with the transportation of race horses and blood stock to Australia, Singapore and further afield through association with Wrightson NMA.

The link between the Reeves and Cunningham families has historical significance. The Lower Hutt-based company was involved in horse transport from its infancy – even before motorised conveyances were dreamed of.

Since those earliest days, the transfer of race horses and blood stock has become sophisticated and a precision operation.

The cost of some of today’s larger floats would pay for a home and section – about $60,000.

Yet, many of these “moving stables” are not reserved simply for kings and queens of the turf. “Today, about one third of our business is moving brood mares. On the return journey we carry their pregnancy home with them.

“This is one reason why I will only employ drivers who love animals. Horse float drivers are a breed on their own. Other people can be the best drivers in the world but if they do not like animals they are no good to me.

“My men drive ‘by the seat of their pants’. After being on the road for a short time they can feel if the horses are moving around in the float. After a few more miles they can tell you the exact animal that is restless,” Mr Reeves said.

Special care

Carrying brood mares and foals is an art – “Who is to know whether we have a future Phar Lap, Balmerino, Coaltown, or La Mer in our care.

“First we load the mare and then we guide the foal in backwards. In this head-to-tail position the wee fellow can get a drink whenever he likes.

“Tucker-time is important to our precious cargo. There is no tap on board and we make no pub stops,” Mr Reeves said.

Drivers know also the quirks of their charges whether they are colts or fillies, entires or geldings, chestnuts, bays or greys. “Horses travel differently,” Mr Reeves said.

“Some animals prefer to travel backwards, others transverse. Some will not stand in one stall. Horses have different temperaments, like kids some are bad travellers.

“On longer trips we arrange to off-load them for a spell to give them a chance to stretch their legs.

“We give them dry food on longer trips but no hay and no water. They can get a hay ball in their throats and the only treatment is to put your arm down and physically pull it out.

“It’s no easy job so we make sure our horses do not get access to anything but dry feed.”

Mr Reeves said some horses were ill-natured travellers. “A lot of top racehorses, who jump out of the starting stalls like angels, are troublesome in other ways. Just like human beings.”

Weekday meetings

The increasing number of weekday race meetings has accelerated the tempo of the company’s operations.

“We now have floats stationed at Te Awamutu, Cambridge, Otaki, Hastings and Christchurch. From those points we go anywhere.

“When I first started transporting horses, in the days of Reeves Horse Transport, a big load was four or five horses. These days we can transport 14 in one vehicle. Our ‘baby’ floats carry seven. We would travel more than a million miles a year,” Mr Reeves said.

By using one of the weekly racing guides, Mr Reeves and his staff know what horses will be on the move – who they are owned by and who their trainers are.

The two latter points hardly need to be noted as Bill Reeves has it all in his head.

“Then we get on the telephone and confirm bookings and organise loadings. Today we work in zones. The sheer economics of the business means we must always carry a full load.

We have to arrange shipping and berths on the ferry for horses crossing Cook Strait.

“We arrange everything by telephone. When each transporter leaves the depot it has its designated load; everything is pre-arranged.

“For big Saturday meetings like Trentham, our floats would leave northern and southern depots on Wednesday. If it is a three day meeting, or run over two Saturdays, then we will fly our drivers home and then back again if they don’t want to stay for the meeting.

“That is all arranged before they leave. We have no place for radio-telephones or telex, everything is done firsthand, by direct contact.

Soft noses

Along with space for racing stock, brood mares or hunters, Majestic Horse Floats provide first-class passenger accommodation for attendants.

“There has been the odd occasion when we have had to use this space to load foals. It is quite comical to see a line-up of soft noses, white blazes and brown eyes peering through the windscreen from just behind the driver’s shoulders,” Mr Reeves said.

But Bill Reeves’ expertise has not been restricted to the cartage of the equine species.

“There have been occasions when we have carried pedigree goats, bulls and even a couple of rams”, Bill Reeves said.

Photo caption – HARDLY EVER wearing a tie, Bill Reeves works from a modest office where his main “tools of trade” are a racebook, telephone and a map of New Zealand.