The Australian Light Horse Sculpture Parade is dedicated to the heroic troops who served in the Australian Light Horse and their horses that could never return.
The sculpture has a central mast and four sets of radiating markers representing the Australian Light Horse on parade. The soaring 55m high mast with its reflective crown, located at the centre of the Light Horse Interchange, provides a focus to the sculpture.
The lit mast and crown symbolise a torch in the dark.
Red, the colour of the Flanders poppy and poppies that bloomed throughout Palestine, is symbolic of the blood of supreme sacrifice and is the colour chosen for the sculptural group.
The abstract plumage attached to each marker represents the emu plumes attached to the Light Horsemen’s slouch hats.
The white band is a reference to the departing soldiers’ innocence of war.
Australian quarantine regulations prevented the return of any horse that had survived the battles. The old and sick horses were shot, while the remainder was handed over to British units. As a reminder of every Light Horseman’s loss in leaving his horse behind, there is no physical representation of the horse in the sculpture.
The support of the Returned and Services League of Australia (NSW Branch) and its former President Rusty Priest AM, and the assistance of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hall DSM and Colonel John Haynes OAM, President of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Association of NSW, are acknowledged.