Polo Club's horses get 'treadmill' to keep fit, so elderly hands can be freed for more useful work
By
Goh Chin Lian
HORSES at the Singapore Polo Club are keeping fit with their own 'treadmill', freeing up the elderly stable assistants, who used to walk them daily, for more productive work.
The club rode on a government scheme to pay for a new horse-walking machine and Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong held the club up on Thursday as an exemplary employer that supports older workers even in a downturn.
'Even though Singapore is facing an economic slowdown, the process of ageing will not slow down,' he told reporters after touring the club in Mount Pleasant Road.
'When the economy recovers in a few years' time, we will again face a shortage of workers. So it is important for us to continue to step up our effort to promote re-employment, as well as employment of older workers.'
The club installed a horse-walking machine nine months ago to relieve the work of 14 stable assistants aged 55 or older.
Each of them used to lead five horses by hand, with each horse walking 2km around a track for 20 minutes to an hour.
Said stable assistant Kasim Hassan, 78: 'As I'm getting older, I find it more difficult to walk and control the horses.'
The machine works like a merry-go-round with rotating grilles that keep up to eight horses walking around a circular track.
Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
