Have you heard the one about the bloke who rode his thirsty buffalo into a pub?
It's a true story, according to animal trainer Steve Noy, who recently rode Ernie the buffalo into a Canungra hotel in the Gold Coast hinterland.
"They were like 'holy hell, we've got a buffalo coming into the pub'," Mr Noy said.
Buffaloes Bert and Ernie have become a common sight in Canungra as Mr Noy trains them to be part of his daughter's trick riding business which performs at country shows.
"That's purely to get them desensitised to cars, people, dogs," he said.
They were bred at a buffalo dairy property on the Sunshine Coast and were destined for life in the circus until COVID shutdowns meant they were no longer required.
Mr Noy said the pair had been broken in since he bought them and could be ridden with a saddle.
He said the next stage of their education was to teach them to be ridden with a person standing on their backs.
"My ultimate goal with these guys is to Roman ride and they will be the only buffalo pair Roman riding in the world," he said.
"These fellows are very calm and very calculated, they're very intelligent."
Great escape
The buffalo pair recently showed their intelligence by using their horns to escape their enclosure.
"Bert was playing with the connection down at the gate and actually unlocked the gate," Mr Noy said.
He said security footage was sent to his phone.
"I see two black buffalo, Bert and Ernie, walking down the street," he said.
"In the morning my daughter got up and they're just standing at the fence waiting to get in for their breakfast."
Mr Noy, who works as an environmental consultant, said training animals had been a life-long passion.
"The majority of my life has been in the zoo industry," he said.
"I used to work at Sea World with the polar bears.
"Just the intelligence of those animals and it's not just the care, but the day-to-day behavioural care of a highly intelligent species."
He said his family had only performed two shows in the past two years due to COVID.
But he said they were preparing for the Canungra Show on August 20.
"Wherever the shows are we pretty much go," he said.
"We've been as far as Melbourne, as far north as Cairns and Mareeba and all the way out to Biloela."
Ernie the extra
The buffaloes have also been used in the film industry.
Ernie played a minor role in the recently released Thirteen Lives movie which was directed by Ron Howard.
"He was in a set in the backdrop of a village," Mr Noy said.
The film, which chronicles the rescue of a junior football team trapped inside a flooded cave in Thailand, was shot on the Gold Coast in 2021.
