A stable worker pulled off an heroic rescue at sea after a racehorse unshipped his rider and swam out towards the ocean.
The horse was having a routine exercise with other members of trainer Symon Wilde’s string on the beach at Lady Bay, near Warrnambool in Victoria, Australia on Monday.
According to an account given by Wilde to Racing.com, the unnamed gelding tripped on some seaweed and lost his rider and then started swimming away from the shore.
"It was pretty amazing," Wilde said. “"For whatever reason, he just started swimming straight out to sea.
"They were watching him and hoping that he would turn around but he didn't, he just kept swimming straight out.
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"There was only one guy rowing the boat there and he was up grabbing a coffee and by this time the horse was basically level with the breakwater and almost into the open ocean.
"A fisherman had just pulled up at the jetty, so the girls asked if they could jump in and go get the horse.
"When they got out there, he had gone around towards the back of the wall and they were struggling to reach down and grab the horse because every time the engine started, the horse was getting a fright and was backing away.
"One of my employees [Jordyn Billings] took her shoes and jumper off and dived into the water, jumped on its back to run it around and started steering it back towards the bay."
Trainer Symon Wllde (right) praised the selfless actions of Jordyn Billings (Getty Images)Billings and another work rider Paddy Bell found the horse 300m from the shore.
“I ran down the beach hoping that he would turn around, but he never did,” Billings told Racing.com.
"Paddy Bell, who works with Maddie Raymond, sprang into action with me and we were both running along the sand towards the pier, where the boats come in.
"We jumped in a boat with a fisherman named Barry, he was a lovely bloke that was just putting his boat in to go fishing.
"It was a big-enough swell for the boat to rock and the motor was upsetting the horse a little bit so we had to do a couple of circles around him.
"We finally got close enough for me to get a lead onto him and I ended up taking a few layers off and jumping in with him.
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Racehorse regularly exercise on the beach near Warrmanbool (Getty Images)"I didn't really think much of it, I was just thinking that if he was going to make it, we needed to get him back to shore as quick as possible.
"I sat on his back with the saddle on until we got into calmer waters and then swam beside him while he swam in the last bit to shore.
"The whole time when I was swimming back in with him, I just made sure that he was breathing calmly and to his credit, he didn't seem too stressed at all.
"He lived to tell the tale, which was the best-possible result."
She added: “I don't think it would've ended as well as what it did if Barry wasn't there going for a fish, so we were very lucky,"
Wilde praised Billings' for her actions, and said: “I don't know that the horse would've survived if she didn't do what she did and she didn't even think twice about it.
"The horse probably would've kept going and drowned.”
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