The South Islanders know how to put on some fun on Saturday night at the NRM National show jumping show – and this year was no different, with a new and extremely entertaining competition.
Sponsored by McMillans, it involved teams of four riders, with the only rules being that the members of the team had to be at various age levels and they had to have one dog – no horses involved. It started with an obstacle course for the youngest competitor and the dog, followed by a three-legged phase for the riders, then some dog weaving, and more doggy obstacles and a phase for the older competitors, which included flipping a glass – among other activities.
The heats involved two teams racing against each other, and we laughed as we saw dogs leaving the course, dogs escaping their collars, other dogs joining the fun, dogs stopping, little dogs jumping far bigger than we thought possible, and then there were the various three-legged techniques in use. For some, co-ordination wasn’t happening, but there were some very impressive runs too!
It was soon down to the finals, with commentator Stewart McGregor running a sweepstake and raising over $400 for a mental health charity. It did everyone’s mental health at the event the power of good having such a laugh.
Team Highlanders won in the end. Well done mainly to Murphy Collins (the dog), and it was great that he won a huge bag of CopRice dog food. His team mates were Nicole White, Meg Bisset, Pippa Collins and Jordan van Miltenburg.
Good effort on the part of Zoe Shore for being the co-ordinator/rule maker (the rules changed throughout) as well as the committee members who contributed to making it such a fun event! Well done to all the participants and the spectators who encouraged them.
Have a look through our gallery of images, to get a little taste of what went on.
