It still haunts me’: Rescuers reveal how Yulong’s star Group 1 filly Treasurethe Moment was saved from raging floodwaters

Young Brit Claudia McDougall had only been in Australia for three months when she heard the frantic message crackling through from one of her Yulong bosses.

McDougall was about to head into Yulong’s property, near Nagambie in Victoria, when she got another phone call from her partner, Yulong’s stallion manager, who asked her to bring some dry clothes to work for him.

She gazed above at the clear, blue sky and couldn’t compute what was going on.

“He said just prepare yourself, this is pretty terrible,” McDougall said.

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Not long after, all hell broke loose.

Horses were swimming for their lives in deadly floodwaters, being circled by dinghies as worried horsemen and people from the local community desperately tried to herd the 500kg animals to safety.

Some horses lost their compasses and were swimming in the wrong direction towards deeper torrents of floodwater.

McDougall was in one of the rescue boats as Joel Stewart, Yulong’s assistant stud manager at the time, dived into the raging waters to save horses.

“It still haunts me,” Stewart recalls.

“I probably looked like Vladimir Putin with no shirt on, just diving in and trying to rescue the horses.

“The whole day is implanted in my head, it’s not going to go away.”

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As new Australian racing star Treasurethe Moment prepares to race as short-priced favourite in Saturday’s Group 1 Vinery Stakes in Sydney, Racenet can reveal how she and other horses were saved in the devastating floods of 2022.

Two Yulong-owned foals were tragically lost but hundreds of other horses, including Treasurethe Moment, were rescued thanks to quick thinking and community support.

If Treasurethe Moment wins her second Group 1 on Saturday – after claiming the VRC Oaks last year – there won’t be a dry eye in the Yulong team as they reflect on her incredible flood survival story as a yearling.

For the first time, the harrowing stories of some of the rescuers that day can be fully told.

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Stewart, who continues to work at Yulong, still can’t quite get his head around the chaotic and barely believable events.

“It was fight or flight, we needed to get those horses out as safely as possible because they were going to be freaking out,” Stewart recalls.

“I remember getting into the water and swimming and the horses were going the wrong way and I was trying to coax them to go the other way.

“Half the horses went into deeper water … I had hold of one and I was thinking ‘this water is getting pretty bloody deep here’.

“I was thinking that I was 80kg and they are 500kg, so what happens if things go wrong?

“I could feel there was a massive current running through the water and I grabbed some horses by their neck straps.

“I ended up putting a halter on one and dragged that one to safety.

“We were trying to herd them using boats and it was almost like we were hoping they were sheep, trying to get them to follow each other.

“So much water had consumed the place, it was a once in 100-year event and I hope I never see anything like it ever again.

“It was terrifying.”

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For McDougall, Yulong’s sales and marketing manager, the raging floods and subsequent rescue event was a baptism of fire soon after arriving Down Under.

Nothing in her time working for Godolphin in the UK had prepared her for this.

McDougall recalls the events of a day she will never forget.

“Hughes Creek runs along the back of the farm, beyond that is the Goulburn River,” McDougall said.

“Essentially what we were dealing with was this huge body of water that was moving down from Lake Eildon and it hit Seymour a couple of days before.

“We were keeping an eye on it and it was looking like we were going to be OK.

“We had a lot of staff who moved all these paddocks of horses around to the front of the farm.

“But, unbeknown to us, the water was actually backing up all the way up the creek. It had gone around the farm and started flooding the front of the farm where we had moved all the horses to.

“I’ve never seen so much water, it was so scary.

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“Treasurethe Moment was in the last group of horses to be rescued from the floods, the yearling fillies.

“I was in a dinghy, there were about 10 boats coming across the paddock, and our job was to circle the horses and try to herd them to safety.

“We were trying to push them forward and get them all swimming which all of them did.

“It was a pretty incredible sight, seeing all of them swimming.

“Once we got across the channel, the boats rounded the horses up our drive and into one of the paddocks further up to safety.

“One of the restaurants in Nagambie cooked us dinner that night, everyone was so tired and emotionally and physically drained.

“We just sat in silence, just eating.”

The young Treasurethe Moment sustained no significant injuries in the floods although the potential mental trauma was always going to be hard to quantify.

From the drama of the floods, Treasurethe Moment has emerged as a racing weapon and has won seven of her nine starts for Yulong and trainer Matt Laurie including the Oaks triumph on the big stage at Flemington.

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Given her potential, Yulong hopes she could one day take over the mantle of Australia’s best horse from another Yulong star, Via Sistina.

But for all the big money and prestige in racing, there is a very human side to the sometimes cutthroat business.

It was the reason that Yulong founder Yuesheng Zhang, with the memory of the 2022 floods on his mind, led Treasurethe Moment back into the Flemington yard after she won the Oaks.

“Racing can melt statues,” said Yulong general manager Vin Cox, who yesterday announced he was resigning from his role following “differences in opinion on strategic direction and values”.

“The Oaks is the only time I have ever seen Mr Zhang lead a horse back in, he was visibly excited.

“I wasn’t at Yulong at the time of the floods, but when you start talking about it with the staff who were there at the time, the emotion and the look of fear in their eyes is still there.

“It was pretty insane.”

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Treasurethe Moment has resumed with a pair of stunning wins in Melbourne to kick start her 2025 autumn carnival campaign.

She is the $1.60 favourite to score the Vinery and $2.30 favourite for the Group 1 Australian Oaks a fortnight later.

Originally published as It still haunts me’: Rescuers reveal how Yulong’s star Group 1 filly Treasurethe Moment was saved from raging floodwaters