Nightmare for horse trainer

THIRTY years of hard work down the drain.
That is the prospect Udyta Clarke is facing as the State Government looks to build a booster pump station right next to her horse training and agistment business Poplar Park in Cardinia.
What first looked like a tiny dot on a map has turned out to be booster pump station (BPS) housed in a 94-metre long and 12-metre wide building – and a nightmare for Ms Clarke.
She works long hard days, from 4am to 8.30pm, but wonders what will become of her business of 30 years when earth moving equipment and machinery arrive to start construction.
“My training track goes right up to corner where the pump building is going to be put,” she said.
“Horses are easily spooked.
“The issue is I can’t train horses round my track – they’re going to try and bolt and crash through fences.
“They’re not worth $5000; they’re worth a lot of money. What am I going to say to the owners (if one gets injured)?”
Ms Clarke said she was told the BPS would take six months to build and had been offered compensation for only that period.
But as owners take their horses to other facilities during those six months, Ms Clarke doubts they will come back.
“What about the rest of my life?” she said of the compensation offer.
“This is what I survive on. I’m a single person here; I built it up over a long time.”
Ms Clarke said it was very distressing to think about the future, particularly in the current economic climate.
“The last thing people want to do is race horses,” Ms Clarke said.
The horse trainer said the State Government was like a big corporation, with scant regard for the little guys.
“They haven’t thought about the landholders it’s going to affect,” she said.
“We’re not worried about the booster pump station going in – just not there.”