GREAT FALLS - A cargo plane landed at Great Falls International Airport on Sunday and a short time later containers carrying 12 horses were unloaded and hauled to a nearby parking lot where the horses were loaded into trailers.
"You have to organize the stalls and that type of thing and then organize where they're coming from and try to get a central location,” said Brewster Walker, who was overseeing the transport.
Walker was transporting the horses for their owners. The animals will be competing in The Event At Rebecca Farm in Flathead County, which is the largest equestrian triathlon west of the Mississippi.
"The limit on FedEx horses is 12 horses on a plane. It requires two professional grooms, whether there's one horse or 12 horses on the plane,” Walker explained.
The horses come from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
"These are professional event horses. They travel internationally, most of them, so they fly all the time,” said Walker.
While having the horses on the ground in Montana may be relieving, Walker says he doesn't relax until the journey to the farm is over.
"We still have almost four hours to get them there over the mountain. But once we get them there and they're all in their stalls and settled in, then we can relax and we relax the whole week,” Walker said.
