point of view Flying First Class
But what about flying our horses domestically here in the United States? After all, Los Angeles to Boston is a 3,000 mile trip. Using a traditional truck and trailer or tractor trailer to haul coast to coast is a very, very long trip, is expensive with gasoline prices soaring and is stressful for the horses. More and more owners forego the use of ground transportation for their expensive show horses and now opt for air transport when the horse needs to travel thousands of miles away from their home base. Domestic airfare for a 1,500 pound
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animal isn’t inexpensive (running $3,000–$5,000), but the obvious benefits are extremely high. However, finding a first class ticket for an equine passenger turned out to be surprisingly difficult when you don’t even know where to start. Google and Bing aren’t very much help either when searching for “equine air transport” or “shipping horses by air,” among other variations. International transport websites were readily available, but domestic air travel providers was the real challenge to locate. Today there are two shippers that can fly your
by Liz Cornell
ransporting a horse from Europe or South America is a common occurrence today using air travel with quarantine restrictions upon arrival.
Horses ready to travel on the Sutton plane. Photo courtesy H.E. Sutton Forwarding
airports that they fly in and out of. In their case each horse is walked onto the plane via a ramp and the stalls are built up around each horse after each one is led in. Sutton has very experienced professional horse handlers that load and unload the horses. Maximum capacity is 21 horses. The selection of airports is more limiting, but you can rest assured the horses are well taken care of by the Sutton staff. Top show horses like Ravel, Steffen Peter’s dressage champion, has racked up a lot of frequent flier miles. Dawn White-O’Connor, who works for Steffen and Shannon Peters, has made flying arrangements for them numerous times and even accompanied their horses on several occasions. “For instance, when we flew Ravel in March for the Dressage at the Masters in Wellington, Florida, he flew FedEx from San Diego to Memphis, we switched planes there and flew on to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which was less than an hour trailer ride to Wellington,” she reports. “For the return trip a week later we used Sutton who regularly flies in and out of Ocala, Florida. So Ravel had a four hour trailer ride
horse: FedEx, a commercial air cargo company, and H.E. Sutton Forwarding, a dedicated equine airline shipping company based in Lexington, Kentucky. In order to work with FedEx, you have to use a shipping agent such as Air Equine based in California or The Dutta Corporation in New York. These agents also work with Sutton, and depending on the flight schedules and destinations, they can help direct you to the best flight provider. FedEx uses the typical three horse stall container,
and after the horses are loaded in the container, they are lifted into the cargo area of the plane. The amount of destinations to choose from for FedEx is higher, but coordinating three horses at a time to fill a container can be tricky. Grooms are allowed to travel with the horses. This is very similar to flying internationally. Sutton has a specially designed plane and specific
to Ocala, and the flight was direct from there to San Diego with one fuel stop.” They worked with The Dutta Corporation for the arrangements who made certain there was a professional groom on board. In Dawn’s opinion, even though both carriers operate a little differently, both flights were safe and Ravel traveled quite well. “It’s all about the logistics of what flights are running and coordinating with other horses that need to fly at the same time. That’s what the agents are for.” This past winter, the Holekamps of New Spring
Farm sold their preliminary event mare, Amarna, to new owners in Southern California. Rather than make a long road trip to her new home, the mare flew from Ocala, Florida (ten minutes from their farm) to Los Angeles using Sutton. Stall-to-stall was about six hours and the mare arrived fresh and happy. Rob Clark, president of H.E. Sutton Forwarding, estimates that 20% of their business is now flying show horses. The bulk of their business is moving race horses, which is how the business originally started over 50 years ago.
WT Warmbloods Today 59
sport horse snippets
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