Blessed with perfect weather and a site right on the edge of Cambridge, the crowds for the April 14-15 event were well up on expectations.
The Rural News Horse Plough competition was a big crowd pleaser with six horse teams competing. Among the South Island teams was a team of six huge Clydesdales from Erewhon Station at the head of the Rangitata River high in the Southern Alps.
The winning team, however, consisted of four smaller Morgan horses from Winton Southland, worked by father-and-son team Peter and Jason Robson, who won by a margin of 10 points with a total of 185 points. This is the fifth time the Robsons have won the event. Peter attributes much of their success to Jason who has “a good eye for ploughing”.
The Morgan horse breed is famous in western movies for pulling stagecoaches and for heavy work on farms.
The ploughing competitions were accompanied by the largest vintage machinery displays recently held;164 vintage tractors of all makes and models, 41 stationary engines, old style shearing plants, 63 vintage cars, a display of 21 vintage ploughs, two built in 1890, and a 1913 Reid and Gray that had won a New Zealand Championship. Alongside were trade displays, craft stalls and plenty of food for the many punters.
Two ploughing winners came from the host ploughing association, Waikato. They were Paul Houghton in the vintage section and Malcolm Taylor in the reversible plough section.
