When the Keys brothers were growing up in the bush, there was no electricity in their home and they had to ride a pony bareback 10km into town.

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It might sound like one of those tall tales older generations tell their children and grandchildren to demonstrate just how easy they've got it.

But for siblings John, Ken and Robert Keys, stories of those frugal early years on a King Island farm, in the middle of the Bass Strait, have come to define both their brotherly bond and their lives working with horses.

The horse train

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