Snowy River Festival and Challenge

   Hi Everyone,

     The Snowy River Festival was a lot of fun.  Before leaving, I was chosen to power wash out the back of the stock truck. 

The only thing about power washers is that water and, ah…other things, tend to fly about.  I am glad I wore plastic coveralls.  We left Thursday afternoon and drove for about five hours in the stock truck to the town of Jindabyne. 

The stock truck loaded with horses and gear

There we set up camp on the grounds of a small resort, called the Station, which has a restaurant, bar, hotel rooms, and lots of space to keep horses and set up courses for the Challenge.  The Challenge was the main event of the weekend.  There were about 80 contestants from 14 to 50+ years of age.  Each contestant must perform a series of challenges with their horse over a two day period (Friday and Saturday).  On the evening of the second day the top ten riders are announced to continue in the Challenge on Sunday.  There are six main events that everyone participates in. 

Packhorse Event

            1. The packhorse event: Two horses are required for the event.  The contestant loads a pack saddle which is provided with certain gear (which is also provided).  Then the contestant mounts the other horse and has to lead the pack horse through an obstacle course.  He or she must do all of this in under about 15 minutes.  The gear consist of a shovel, ax, pot, flour, sugar, hammer, horse foot trimmer, horse shoe nails, rabbit trap, dish towel, whiskey bottle,  an egg (which the contestant can lose points for if it breaks) and a can of poison.  After the saddle bags are packed, a swag (sleeping mattress) is loaded along with a horse blanket on top of the horse’s back.  Once the rider has gone through the obstacle course, he or she must unload the horse and packs, placing everything back where they found it. 

            2. Horse shoeing event: Each contestant must clip and prepare a front and back hoof on their horse and then shoe the hooves all in half an hour.  This is actually a lot harder than it sounds.  The hooves are suppose to be un-manicured and grown out before the event.  Then to put shoes on, the rider has the get the horse to cooperate and fit the shoe to the horse’s hoof. 

Whip Cracking Event

            3. The Whip crack Event:  This is an obstacle course with that has targets made of string that the contestant has to sever as he or she is passing on horseback while keeping the horse moving at a canter.  There is a free-style section at the end of the event where the contestant has 20 seconds to demonstrate their whip-cracking skills.  Many riders stand on their horse’s back while cracking their whip.

Stockhandling Event

            4. The Stockhandling Event:  Each contestant has to move three full grown cattle through a series of obstacles.  They must herd the cattle through a shoot, then around a tree, and lastly through a gate.  This is also a timed event.  The shoot is hard because it stands in the middle of the arena and the cattle usually just walk around it.  It is also hard to get the cattle to move around the tree because sometimes they will scatter and not all go the same direction.  The gate is probably the easiest, but the rider has to line the cows up, then open the gate, herd the cows through, then close the gate.

Bareback Event

            5. The Bareback Event:  This was a timed obstacle course that each rider had to do without a saddle and their choice of reins or just a string around the horse’s neck.  For obstacles, the riders had to canter through some trees, have their horse put their front and then back feet on a small drum, open and close a fence gate (they pull the top bar out, jump the lower bar, and then replace the top bar), ask their horse to wait while they get a coat, then replace it from the top of their horse, and finally side pass along a log which is buried in a ditch.  Some of the riders were amazing, just using their whips around the horse’s neck and steering with their legs.  At the end of the obstacle, the rider could do a free style stunt to show how trusting the horse was.  Many riders crawled in and out of their horse’s legs, while others did tricks on the horse’s back. 

Last jump of the Cross Country Event

            6. The Cross Country Event: The final all inclusive event.  Each rider rode out and had to go through an obstacle course at a canter while being timed.  There were logs, rocks, and tires that had to be jumped; extra points were awarded if the rider also cracked their whip as they went over each one.  Then the final obstacle was a log jump on the side of a hill right above a pond of water.  Many of the riders rode their horses through the water at the end since it was a hot day. 

Tent Pegging

   Besides the challenge, there were venders with their stalls, exhibits about different breeds of horses, tent pegging (which is where a team of four horsemen ride down a straight stretch at full speed while attempting to pick up blocks of wood at the end of their poles or in some cases swords), the world champion whip cracker gave a demonstration and a competition, bush poetry, a dog high jump competition and entertainment. 

Kathrin and Barry working with Sambo and Jimmy in our Brumby Display

   We were part of the horse exhibit for brumbies, and we also did a demonstration of what brumbies are capable of learning.  Our main goal was to show people that wild brumbies, once caught and trained, are just like other horses.  Brumbies are even better than other horses for trail rides because they are used to the bush, and many brumbies make good kids’ horses since they are smaller than most other horse breeds.  From working with Sky, I have learned that brumbies are very smart, affectionate, and extremely lazy.  But even though the truck ride and festival with all its noises was new for our brumbies, they were very calm and behaved admirably for horses that had just left the paddock a week before.

The Animal Wranglers

  I also got to watch the dog high jump challenge.  The winner jumped to 6 ft. 10 inches. On Friday night there was free entertainment in the bar restaurant.  Our entertainer was Pete Denahy, who sang funny songs as well as some more serious songs about older Australian life.  Besides playing guitar, he also plays a mean fiddle.  It was a lot of fun to listen and learn a bit more about Australian music.  Another wonderful source of good family entertainment was the Animal Wranglers show.  One of the contestants was the presenter and he had a fellow animal trainer, known as Bazza the Clown, who played a miscreant and tried to steal the stage light from his fellow wrangler.  Both men are very good with animals, sometimes they would ride bare back, or lay a horse down and crack whips over its head, other times ride a horse with nothing but a string as reins.   The show had audience participation, funny stunts and a cop car chase, although the car being chased was actually a horse with a steering wheel and lights, and the cop was astride a bullock with two humps.

Brooke with the coolest shirt ever

Me attempting to crack a whip

During the weekend I meet some new friends.  The first is Brooke, a twelve year old horse lover from South Australia.  She wants to go to an agricultural college so that she can one day own and operate her own station.  One of Brooke’s other dreams is to come to American and tame her own wild mustang while seeing different parts of American, especially Wyoming.  Brooke helped us with the brumbies and she taught me a bit about whip cracking.  I will have to practice a lot more before I am as good as Brooke.

  My second new friend is Carol Heuchan, horse lover as well and renowned bush poet.  I bought two of her books and I really enjoy her poetry and the stories that her poems tell. 

Carol Heuchan reciting a poem for her audience

Australia has a rich history of poetry and poets.  Their most beloved and famous poet is A.B. Banjo Paterson, who wrote the poem “The Man from Snowy River” which the movie is based off of.  During festivals Australians always incorporate poetry and often hold poetry reciting contests.  I participated in the non-original poem contest at the festival along with two other Australian gentlemen.  I recited the abridged version of the Beowulf saga by Susan Wise Bauer, and “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service.  The other contestants recited two poems each.  One was about road workers in the Great Depression, another was about Cattle Droving, the third was about the aboriginal people and the troubles they face with alcoholism, and the last was a love poem about a bush rider who took a chance to come back and see his girl, but got shot by the posse that was after him (this one was my favorite).  I, amazingly enough, won first place and a hundred and fifty dollars for my recitation of the Beowulf saga. 

On Saturday night, the top ten contestants in the challenge were named, and the next day the first of the final challenges began.  First each man (there were only men in the top ten) had to catch a wild brumby from the back of his horse in the main arena.  Each contestant’s brumby was chosen by lot.  Once the brumby entered the arena, the man had four minutes to catch the brumby with a halter rope, without falling off his horse, and then start some basic beginning training while still on the back of his own horse. 

Brumby Catch: Many riders had to watch
for the brumbies' accurate kicks

Brumby handling: this is the young man that won

Two brumbies were not caught in the four minute time limit and one rider fell of his horse when it stumbled.  He was only in the first thirty seconds of his turn.  All the rest were caught, and from these, three were chosen to continue on to the final.  The top three contestants were: the leader from Animal Wranglers, a twenty-two year old, and a twenty year old.  For the final challenge each contestant was given two hours to work with the brumby he had caught and at the end of that time demonstrate what he had taught his horse.  The whole time the men were judged on their skill in training and handling their animal.  It was amazing to watch how they worked with their horses.  The final winner of the whole challenge was the twenty-two year old.  I think the prize was five thousand dollars, a very nice saddle, and a horse blanket with the challenge’s logo and year on it.  

  I think the most amazing part of the competition was watching some of the younger contestants and seeing how good they were with their horses.  All the contestants had obviously put in a lot of time and effort to work so smoothly with their horse. 

   Since we have returned, I have been busy picking strawberries and making strawberry rhubarb pie.  We also had to help Kathrin put a bandage on one of the horses’ legs because he cut it while trying to jump out of one of the paddocks.  I have also been assigned to walk along the fence of the goats paddock every other day or so to make sure there are no goats with their horns stuck in the fence.  Kathrin left yesterday to work for a week as a vet substitute.  Unfortunately as she was driving to the clinic, a tractor she was trying to pass turned in front of her.  Kathrin is all right, but her car is pretty smashed.  Meanwhile, here it continues to be hot and humid intermixed with huge thunderstorms. 

  With all my love,

       Hana