Warning: This story contains content some readers may find distressing
In the foothills of Mount Eliza, at the start of the Mornington Peninsula, a bay colt pops his head over a crumbling concrete fence, inquisitive at photographer Chris Hopkins’ camera.
The peninsula is known for its sprawling green studs, where racehorses – like those racing this spring carnival – are bred, raised and trained.
But this is no regular stud; broken fences lie on the ground, barren swaths of paddock have turned to mud, dangerous wire lies loose around the property.
And these horses are not in regular condition. The young male – nicknamed “Flat Back” by animal activists – has a weeping gash on his face. Thick yellow mucus streams from his nostrils.
Colts Trouble (left) and Flat Back, with an oozing facial wound and running nostrils, photographed on October 4.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Flat Back is one of 18 male horses remaining at this property, owned by Maxine Elizabeth Galpin (also known as Maxine Fraser), a former thoroughbred trainer. Two weeks ago, police and the RSPCA swooped on this sprawling acreage and seized 35 sick, starving and vulnerable horses, including foals, after a relentless and at-times contentious six-month campaign by activists.
The horses left behind after the seizure are all male – unusually housed together – and fight each other, kick and bite. Despite their wounds, these animals, photographed by this masthead, did not hit the legal threshold for neglect.
“Within days, they [the wounds] stink, they reek. They are weeping with pus,” says activist Carly Wines. “The stench coming through with these infections is just mortifying; you can smell it before you see it.”
The shocking case of what Wines calls the Mount Eliza “farm of horrors” is not over, but the intense social media campaign to “save” neglected horses has held fire to the feet of authorities and exposed gaping holes in enforcement and regulation around horse welfare in Victoria.
The entire episode has fuelled urgent demands for the Allan government to end the year-long hold-up and table wholesale animal welfare reform.
A long track record
The crisis that led to the mass seizure on the Moorooduc Highway property stretches back to at least 2011. As early as July 2009, Galpin was called before Racing Victoria’s jumps review panel regarding the performance of her horses.
Maxine Galpin, also known as Maxine Fraser, in 2009.Credit: Fairfax Media
Galpin, who ran a small-scale racing operation with total career prizemoney of $21,588, raced primarily at country tracks. The concerns around her stud, which she purchased in 2006, became evident with the first major intervention in June 2011, when Racing Victoria stewards declared two horses unfit to race and ordered a vet inspection of all 31 horses then on her property.
Inspectors found most of the horses were parasite-ridden, starving and being fed mouldy hay and a coconut byproduct unsuitable for horses. According to a 2017 ruling by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which upheld Racing Victoria’s ban of Galpin the previous year, further inspections in 2011 found some horses had skin diseases and others – because of a lack of food – “were eating their own faeces and as a result suffering recurrent parasitic infestation”.
Inspections noted improvements between 2011 and 2013, but still found continuing concerns about some horses, and a vet noted Fraser’s management of horses was “eccentric” and “could easily deteriorate”.
By 2016, Racing Victoria revoked Galpin’s licence entirely, noting her property was in a “very dilapidated state”. The yard area was covered in deep mud mixed with faecal matter and urine that was knee-deep in parts, with the stench strong enough to be smelt from the road. Galpin refused entry to inspectors, and was struck from the industry as “not a fit and proper person”.
While Racing Victoria has rules for licensed participants retiring thoroughbreds, there are virtually no statutory limitations on who can purchase or possess horses in Victoria. This allowed Galpin, a person deemed unfit to hold a trainer’s licence by VCAT, to easily acquire and keep animals thereafter. The only way to restrict her animal ownership would be via a restrictive court monitoring order, which the RSPCA cannot obtain without filing and proving a new cruelty case.
Although officially disqualified from the racing industry in part due to welfare concerns, Galpin continued to own and breed horses.
Wines, a Keysborough horse owner and long-time animal activist, says the property – and its skinny horses – have been well known to locals for years. Sports grounds that neighbour the farm provide a full public view of the dilapidated property and its horses, goats and dogs.
Photos of the “sad horses at Mt Eliza” would pop up on Facebook among Victorian horse owners and welfare groups, she says.
“Every two or three months, it would come up where someone said, ‘I went for a walk … I went and looked, and there are skeletons walking, there were really sick animals there,’” Wines says.
Two of the 18 remaining horses on the Mount Eliza property of former racehorse trainer Maxine Galpin.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Weeping wounds and toxic friction
Spurred to act, Wines set up the Facebook group “Peaceful Protest Mt Eliza Horses” in April, and asked if anyone would join her for a quiet Sunday protest outside Galpin’s property to try to bring attention to the horses’ plight.
Soon, a dedicated band of volunteers was monitoring the property around the clock, obsessively documenting the health of more than 50 horses, reporting to the RSPCA and partaking in what became a weekly – and at times fraught – protest.
There have been videos of confrontations between a furious Galpin and the activists, incidents of trespass and claims of stalking. Activists don’t pull punches with their personalised messaging; placards held each week outside the property say “Maxine if you can’t feed them, don’t breed them!“, “Maxine worm your horses”, “Maxine feed your horses!“, and “Maxine! The community holds you accountable”.
RSPCA chief executive Dr Liz Walker is at pains to say that she believes the community campaign and protest has not “helped at all”, and that the “pile-on” against vulnerable owners makes her “really worried” about a potential “tragic outcome”. The RSPCA said a deluge of reports based on second-hand information and unverified photos taken from social media posts also slowed the process, and officers had received relentless criticism from people who did not understand the strict limitations of the law.
Protesters, led by Carly Wines (third from right), have been rallying every weekend since April outside the property.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Galpin, who was approached multiple times for comment for this story, appears to be under financial duress: public records show she refinanced the property with a private lender on September 24, the day before the major RSPCA seizure. The sprawling 28-acre property has been on the market for six years, and in June, Galpin posted an unsuccessful GoFundMe campaign seeking feed for horses and goats citing a 600 per cent increase in the cost of hay as a result of the drought.
But Wines says the intensity of the campaign has been warranted, given the extent of the horrific conditions.
She and her fellow campaigners have documented a litany of gruesome episodes between April and September viewed by this masthead, including multiple dead horses left in the open and dogs gnawing at the remains. They also documented stallions killing another horse before chewing it, horses sustaining “horrific wounds” inflicted by stallions, and horses with deformities including bowing and buckled legs.
There are no internal fences on the property left, so all horses – stallions, geldings, mares and foals – run together, breed and fight.
Wines cries as she recounts the most brutal incident, filmed by a fellow activist and provided to this masthead, where stallions killed a newborn foal nicknamed “Chief” weeks before the RSPCA seizure.
Activists later found the foal’s mother dead with punctures to the stomach.
“That really was the moment that I thought, well, something will be done,” Wines says.
“We called them sacrificial horses. We knew there was going to be probably a couple of deaths that had to happen to be able to document.”
Constrained and criticised
Police cars and RSPCA horse floats drove into the property on September 25, six months after the protest campaign began.
The most profound constraint on investigating and acting on cases is outdated legislation itself, according to RSPCA chief inspector Michelle Green, who explained that inspectors often “have to walk away from cases because the bare minimum welfare requirements are being met under the legislation”, even when it “doesn’t sit well with us as individuals”.
Inspectors attended the property more than 20 times throughout the investigation, issuing notices to comply before a warrant was issued and the horses were seized.
When seizing an animal, the RSPCA must prove an offence has been committed against that specific animal “beyond reasonable doubt”, Green says, and the authority must give the owner opportunities to seek veterinary treatment.
Stallions have been seen with bite marks and untreated wounds.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“We’re dealing with people with mental health issues, cost-of-living issues, domestic violence impacts. Every single case is so different,” Green says.
Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor Anthony Marsh says the council, which has long been aware of the issues at the property, was a “frustrated observer” with “zero jurisdiction” over the horses.
Similarly, Racing Victoria’s disqualification of Galpin’s training licence marked the end of the industry’s legal jurisdiction over the horses. According to a spokesman, Racing Victoria was advised by Galpin’s lawyers that officials were “not welcome to attend her property, which eliminated any opportunity to assist directly”, and she had turned down offers to rehome animals.
Political bottleneck
As Victoria gears up for the glamour of the spring racing carnival, the Allan government faces intense pressure to address the legislative gap.
Despite obvious wounds, some horses were not seized by the RSPCA and remain at the property.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell says the case features “some of the worst neglect I have ever seen – which is truly saying something given the nature of my job”. She says there is no justifiable reason to delay introducing the wholesale animal protection reform first promised a decade ago.
“Victoria’s animal protection laws of [the] Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act are actually older than I am,” the 32-year-old says.
The solution sits on Agriculture Minister Ros Spence’s desk: the Animal Care and Protection Bill, which would introduce a crucial “positive duty of care” standard, allowing for intervention based on neglect, not just cruelty.
However, Spence’s office refused to provide any timeline or commitment for the bill, which has been pending since the final consultation summary was released in June 2024.
In a statement, a government spokesperson said: “There is no place for animal cruelty, and anyone who breaks the law will be investigated and dealt with.” The spokesperson said RSPCA Victoria was responsible for investigations and had seizure powers.
A horse crisis across the state on the back of years of drought underscores the urgency of the reforms. More than 8000 horses were reported to the RSPCA last financial year, a record number.
At Mount Eliza, Wines and fellow activists still gather each weekend – refocusing their efforts on the remaining horses, goats and dogs.
“It’s going to bring change,” Wines says. “For future horses, so they’re not caught up for 10 or 12 years in this broken system.”
Know more about this or another story? Reach Rachael Dexter securely via ProtonMail (end-to-end encrypted) at rachaeldexter@protonmail.com or message her on Signal at rachaeldexter.58.
