TONY KENDALL has been a prominent name in the horse sports arenas around Queensland for decades and has the ribbons, buckles and trophies to prove it.
But within the fancy clobber, you may have seen him in at show jumps, dressage, campdrafts or rodeos, is a man who epitomises a generation of hard-working people.
Tony Kendall has been a cane cutter, a horse breaker, a drover, a jackaroo, a fencer and now a grazier, and this article follows the trail of this man who could best be described as a 'true Aussie battler'.
Now 74 years old, Tony's life has had many twists and turns before he arrived at this point in time where he and his wife of 38 years, Beth, can relax a little ? but his passion for campdrafting and for horses remains as strong as ever.
Tony did his primary school education ? his only schooling ? at a one-teacher school at Booyal, near Childers. He left school at the age of 13 and went jackarooing and droving in the south-west.
In 1960 he decided he'd have to get a better paying job if he wanted to get ahead in life and went back to the Booyal district, where he took up the back-breaking work of cane cutting.
"I cut more than 11,000 tonnes of sugarcane by hand," he recalled.
It gave him enough money to buy a 160-acre block on which he ran cattle while cutting cane, and over the next few years he bought a couple more blocks.
In 1971 he decided to sell up and go to the Atherton Tableland, where he bought two old dairy farms in the Mallan district - one of the wettest areas in Australia - and ran cattle while working at a sawmill in Ravenshoe.
He broke horses to supplement his income, and it was here he married Beth, whom he had known from Booyal.
In 1980, the Kendalls sold their Tableland farms and bought Waterview Station south of Prairie, and Tony's drive to better his lot continued when in 1985 he sold Waterview and bought Koon Kool where he began the Koon Kool Brahman Stud.
In the time he has been there the family has bought the Flinders Butchery in Hughenden, Corfield Transport, Morvada Station and Mt Beckford Station.
Realising that the time of succession was upon him, Tony now co-owns Koon Kool and Morvada with his stepson Barry Christensen and his wife, Tania.
His other stepson Stuart Christensen and his wife, Stacey, own Mt Beckford and the Flinders Butchery in Hughenden.
Tony's great passion has been horses and he breeds his own horses for the station and for campdrafting.
In 1974 he was contracted to break in eight horses for a neighbouring property, and one of them was a timid two-year-old filly which eventually won the Australian Stock Horse Society Performance Horse of the year.
The horse was called Fashion.
"I picked her out of the mob of eight breakers a bloke sent me to break. Within five minutes of having her by herself in the yard, I got a shiver up my back as I recognised that I had a special horse here."
Tony's luck came good when that night the owner called him to see how it was going and told him that of the eight horses, he didn't want that one back and would Tony see if he could sell her on after he'd broken her. Tony asked how much he would take for her unbroken and was told $40.
At daylight the next morning, he drove the hour it took to get to the fellow's place and paid him the $40 before he changed his mind.
After paying the money, he told the man he believed that the horse would end up a champion.
Tony is still competing on horses that come from her and is now working a great-great-granddaughter of Fashion, which he believes will be another great horse.
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