In his old AIF uniform, slouch hat replete with emu feathers, riding boots, leather bandolier and .303 rifle strapped across his back, Hamilton would not have been out of place 100 years ago.

Back then, Tenterfield, like many towns and villages across Australia, had sent their men and horses across the sea to war. Hamilton rides the very saddle his great uncle Willy Bunyan used while serving with the Australian Light Horse in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign from 1916 to 1918.

"We marked the centenary of the Anzac landings last year and now it's the turn of the Light Horse," said Hamilton who has worked most of his 60 years in the bush.

"They took part in the Battle of Romani to protect the Suez Canal in 1916 and of course, next year is the centenary of the famous Light Horse charge at Beersheba."

The Australian War Memorial says 136,000 "walers" (the general name applied to Australian horses abroad) were sent overseas for use by the Australian Imperial Force and the British and Indian governments. 

Only one horse, Sandy, belonging to Major General Sir William Bridges who was killed at Gallipoli, made it back to Australia. At war's end, due to quarantine restrictions, the remaining 13,000 animals were either sold for use by the British Army in India or put down.

Hamilton belongs to the 500-member Australian Light Horse Association that honours the mounted troops with historical re-enactment units. His Tenterfield troop has links going back to the earliest days.

Hamilton heads the Major J.F Thomas Troop, a descendent of the Tenterfield Light Horse Troop with links back to the Tenterfield Detachment of the Upper Clarence Light Horse formed in 1885.

The Thomas troop is named for a local solicitor, James Francis Thomas.

"Bundy's done the march so often he sort of knows the route by heart," Hamilton says.