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1. Sean Leslie and Casey Tilson won the Rural News Horse Plough award at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships at Horotiu on April 13-14.
Sean Leslie and Casey Tilson from Middlemarch, with horses Beau and Dough, took out the Rural News Horse Plough award at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships at Horotiu, near Hamilton, on April 13-14.
Early on during the event, the team seemed to be a favourite to win, although at the time, Sean told Rural News, "There's still a lot of dirt to tip over yet".
He says finding horses with the right temperament for competition ploughing isn't easy. While Beau and Dough have not been doing it for long, they've proved they have the right stuff.
The rain showers softened up the ground at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships, hosted by the Waikato Ploughing Club, but didn't deter competitors or spectators.
Among the competitors was Tryphena Carter from Southland - an experienced hand in the Fern Energy Silver Plough Conventional class.
She’s been in the sport for a few years now and was one of many competitors who came up from the South Island, where the sport of ploughing is strong.
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Thomas Sime from Outram competing at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships, in the Holmes Solutions Contemporary class. He took a couple of trophies home. |
Competitive ploughing needs more young folk coming through the ranks, so it was also great to see Thomas Sime from Outram not only competing, but also taking home some of the silverware - the 2nd year in a row he has done so.
Other results: First place in the Fern Energy Silver Plough Conventional – Mark Dillon; first in the Pioneer Reversible – Bob Mehrtens. These two will represent New Zealand at the 70th World Ploughing Contest in the Czech Republic in 2025.
Ploughing champions Mark Dillon and Malcolm Taylor earned the right to represent the country at the World Ploughing Championships in Osijek, Croatia, on 5 and 6 September, after winning their titles at the New Zealand Ploughing Championships in Middlemarch in 2025.
The mood is relaxed as father and son ploughmen Paul and Derek Houghton get some practice in, but when the national championship starts this Saturday it will be a different story.
With our own National Fieldays only few weeks away, Rural News took the opportunity to take a trip overseas – as a guest of Enterprise Ireland, which invited 190 guests from 19 countries – to look at Ireland’s own national event, locally known as The Ploughing.
Ploughman Ian Woolly (Blenheim) and Malcolm Taylor (Putaruru) will represent NZ at next year’s World Ploughing championships in Ireland.
A much scaled-down New Zealand Ploughing championship will be held near the Canterbury town of Kirwee in mid-July.
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