What is a Horse Track System?
A Horse Track System is a potential layout for an equestrian property as defined by Jaime Jackson in his book Paddock Paradise: A guide to Natural Horse Boarding.
The concept has grown in popularity all over the world, for its advantages in managing the growing number of horses with metabolic issues. These horses do better, or in some cases are only able to stay healthy, without access to the enriched, lush grasses, that are now a feature of the typical equestrian property. Traditionally, horses that couldn’t tolerate grass would be managed by keeping them in stables or small sand yards for extended periods, which exacerbates the problem, because exercise is the best antidote to metabolic issues.
As the concepts of Horse Track Systems and Paddock Paradise Natural Horse Boarding become more mainstream, many, if not most, horse owners will by now have heard something about them, and their ability to support a more natural lifestyle for horses.
How tracks can be helpful in fire-prone areas
What we don’t seem to be talking about though, is the ability of Horse Track Systems to support a more proactive property layout in fire-prone areas like the Perth Hills where I live. They’re also able to support a more environmentally friendly footprint in bush areas, by removing the need to clear whole areas of trees for paddocks but that’s a topic for a seperate conversation.
Local government regulations in my area require all properties to have and maintain “a strip of bare earth, not less than 3m in width and 4m in height, immediately inside all external boundary fences”. It describes the purpose of the firebreaks as being to “reduce the spread of a low intensity fire and to provide safe access on your property to firefighters”.
In areas where everyone has firebreak
So it’s safe to say that every property in our fire-prone area already has at least one firebreak. We do, and they were the start of our horse track system. In the meantime, we’ve added to them and our track now runs around and between all of our paddock areas, including separating the house and shed from bush/forest areas.
What this effectively does is separate all flammable areas – whether bush/forest or grass/pasture – from each other and from infrastructure like sheds and houses. It also offers vehicle access around and through the property.
We keep our tracks bare and are not currently using our paddocks for grazing because one of the horses on our property can’t tolerate grass, but it would be just as easy to have a track that starts out as having grass on it and gets reduced to dirt through horses eating it down and walking on it. Or to have and use grass paddocks, with free access to one paddock at a time via a track.
The thing with Horse Track Systems is that they can be infinitely flexible, depending on the needs of the horses, the facilities already in place on the property, and the conditions of the land on which the property sits. A well designed track will be multi-purpose, and in the context of this conversation, some of the considerations that could be useful in fire-prone areas:
- Making sure that corners/bends in the track aren’t too tight for vehicles to get around (or horses at high speed).
- Ensuring that trees don’t overhang tracks and restrict access.
- Testing the footing in dry and wet conditions to make sure that vehicles can get through.
- Considering how you could incorporate various exit points into the property layout.
- Considering the fire-safe areas available to you in various conditions – like a dressage arena or other large sandy surface – potentially with irrigation to it.
Spreading the word
In our area, we have career firefighters, local government fire safety officers and dedicated groups of volunteer firefighters, approximately one group for each suburb. These incredible people not only turn up when fire is threatening our properties, they also spend a lot of time in the non-fire season inspecting properties, offering advice and conducting fire education and fire prevention workshops and from my experience, they’re always interested in hearing about ways to make their job easier.
Most, if not all of these people are not horse people, so it’s highly unlikely that they will have heard of Horse Track Systems, the concept of Paddock Paradise, or how this way of designing a property, could be useful in fire-prone areas.
What you can do
If you live in a fire-prone area and have a Horse Track System already set up, consider inviting a local fire prevention officer to take a look at it. If you don’t have a Horse Track System already setup, consider asking a local fire prevention officer to give you their opinion on what features you could incorporate into your setup, that would make their job easier.
Regardless, extending the conversation outside of the horse world and into the fire prevention world could be a step forward for everyone.