Hadley and Coco Willsallen are sisters, best friends and equine vets

If it takes a village to raise a child, then the Willsallen sisters are doing it right. Hadley and Coco Willsallen share a life, and a profession as equine vets, on the family farm near Jugiong in the Hilltops region of New South Wales. Alongside their partners, their parents and their two brothers, the sisters are the fourth generation to live on Widgeongully and now their own children will grow up surrounded by the love and support of this tight-knit extended family. Widgeongully even has its own bush air strip, which means Hadley can fly across the country as a surgeon and specialist consultant, while Coco welcomes clients to her on-farm clinic.

There aren’t many friendships as taut as that of sisters. The shared mannerisms, the physical similarities — same same but different — and love as ingrained as the whorls of fingertips.

At 40, Hadley Willsallen is five years older than Coco; enough of a gap that, growing up, it could have gone either way: best mates or life just on the periphery. It’s the former. The bookends of two middle brothers, they’ve shadowed each other at every turn, from travelling together through Africa, Morocco, Namibia, Peru, Bolivia and Ireland to spending hours soaking up the vistas of their home scenery from the saddle.

“It’s an incredible friendship. I think sisters have the deepest connection. Coco has been with me for everything, forever,” says Hadley. “I remember helping mum with Coco when she first came home. As children, the two of us would often ride off on adventures, laying clothes over fences so we could jump them into the neighbour’s property. We’d cross the river to gallop, stop and turn in the sand.”

“Hadley saved me from drowning in the Murrumbidgee River as a young kid,” says Coco. “She pulled me out from under a submerged willow tree during one of our regular inner-tube floats. At boarding school she was my dorm monitor in Year 7. When I was homesick, she encouraged me to smuggle four wild river ducklings to school and let me keep them in her room. She didn’t seem to care about the mess. The kitchen ladies found them and left a note saying ‘ducks in kitchen’ — you can imagine my hysteria at that, but somehow we got them back unscathed.”

Growing up on 2020 hectares of undulating country — the homestead a 10-minute drive from the Jugiong pub — was fertile breeding ground for a free-range childhood. Horses are the family’s generational obsession, passed down from both sides. The sisters’ paternal grandmother Mary Willsallen was given a Show Legend Award after 51 consecutive years competing at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. The sisters remember riding in the Snowy Mountains looking for brumbies with Mary’s husband, Michael, who would pick them up from boarding school and trek around the countryside to compete in combined driving events.

“Meanwhile, Mum’s parents had a cattle station in Far North Queensland, so she had a completely different upbringing. Mum and her mother, Patricia, would sit on the rails of the cattle yards watching the wild station horses being broken in. We grew up horse crazy and we’re very proud of that,” Hadley says. “I remember when I was about nine years old and Coco was four. We snuck out of the house at midnight with our sleeping bags. Dad came looking for us around 3am and found us asleep on the wide backs of our Welsh mountain ponies.”

This obsession seeped into their careers. Hadley studied veterinary science in Sydney straight out of school and went on to study for an additional five years to become an equine surgeon. She’s one of the few in Australia to freelance, travelling around the east coast and even flying to Darwin to operate.

“There’s no equine hospital in the Northern Territory. We anaesthetise the horses on the lawn on a queen-size mattress. We have an extension cord running from the clinic and a hardware-store gazebo for shade,” Hadley says. “I love the work. I find it challenging and interesting. It comes with high highs and low lows. Horses are so unpredictable; accepting that and maintaining a level head and realistic approach is important.”

It’s a demanding career, which Hadley balances around raising her three daughters: Clover, five, Olive, two-and-a-half, and one-year-old Flora. Maternity leave has shrunk along the way, with Hadley scrubbing up when Flora was just seven days old. This is made possible by enormous support from her husband Rob and her mum, Rhea, while her dad, Tony, often flies Hadley across the state to different clinics, acting as babysitter to whichever baby comes along for the ride.

“I’ll take whoever is breastfeeding with me, and change nappies or feed between surgeries,” Hadley says. “A receptionist or nurse looks after the baby, or if I have the luxury of Dad flying me, he doubles up as babysitter. It’s a win–win!”

Communal living doesn’t get much better than it is with the Willsallens. Although Rhea and Tony have been separated for nearly 20 years, family remains a priority and they both live at Widgeongully, alongside their four children. Eldest son Oliver manages the property, working with his brother, Tom, and brother-in-law, Rob. Oliver and his partner Yvette and toddler Oki offer boutique accommodation at The Quarters, Jugiong.

“We have the best of both worlds. If we need a hand, it’s a simple call out. Everyone brings a lot to the table,” Coco says. 
“We are the sort of family where everyone has a strong opinion, often differing, and scientifically minded. We’re always having interesting debates over the dinner table.”

It was Hadley who convinced Coco to follow her in the same professional path. Coco specialises in equine reproduction,
establishing the Willsallen Veterinary Services clinic on the farm. With Rhea often on the tools as her vet technician, Coco works seven months of the year in the clinic, while overseeing the family’s cattle operations.

“Hadley encouraged me to pursue vet science. She’s been a lifeline over the years; a phone call away when I’ve been faced with a particularly stressful case, or just to debrief,” Coco says. The praise is bounced straight back by Hadley. “From a young age, Coco observed what we did and then, when it was her turn, she always did it better. She is an inspiration to me. She has a strength like no-one else I know.” 

Aviation is also in Coco’s blood, and now she is on the verge of obtaining her private pilot’s license.

“We have a little bush airstrip down by the river and as a budding pilot it’s not the easiest place to land; you have to come over the big river red gums and the river; there are a few hills you have to dodge and sometimes even stock. Dad will often ring from the air, asking us to quickly go and clear the sheep off the strip,” Coco says. “When you’re in the control seat of an aeroplane, there’s nothing like it. The experience is addictive and I find that when I haven’t flown for a while, I crave it. I have dreams about flying.”

Once fully qualified, Coco hopes to fly Hadley to a few of her surgeries, if she can beat her dad to the job. Coco is expecting her first baby with partner Bronson in early 2022, so the sisters will fly — babies in tow — a team in every respect.

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