SYDNEY'S ROYAL EASTER SHOW - 2

After the visits to the animal pavilions, bazaars, District Displays, Arts and Crafts and the Showbag Pavilion, not to mention the Woodchopping Arena - where they were between events - I headed off to the stands in the big arena to have lunch while watching the ring events such as this riding contest.


The big and beautiful Shire horses were being judged on the far side of the arena. Such majestic animals and so gentle in spite of close to a ton of weight behind them although one of them seemed to be very reluctant to leave the spotlight to return to the dim interior of his stable box !




The harness horses were also showing their paces around the track before pulling off into the centre of the arena for judging.....


....while the next contestant in the show jumping waited for his turn to go around the circuit.






The Show was officially opened, not on the first day but on the seventh ! Regardless, the pageantry was just the same as the State Governor, Professor Marie Bashir, was escorted around the arena by a mounted police escort before inspecting the Federation Military Guard of servicemen from all three services. The speeches always made on these occasions were agreeably short.




After the Governor had moved into the VIP box, the Navy band marched off.....


....and the Grand Parade got underway for its 100th Anniversary.

I am not sure how they do it but all the participants in the Grand Parade only have four slender stakes to guide them as they weave their way through intricate patterns all over the arena. Millions of dollars worth of many different species of livestock on parade in the same arena at the same time including dairy and beef cattle, harness, riding, show jumping and rodeo horses, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs. No cats though. Although there are classes for cats in the Show, I can just imagine the difficulty in persuading cats that they should condescend to join the other animals on display ! The audience was asked not to applaud the parade because a sudden burst of noise could have created havoc with the highly bred and sensitive animals especially if one of the bulls took off through the parade.

The cart in the photo below was an old rags, bones and bottle cart.


There was even an old bullock wagon and team. These teams were used throughout the outback many many years ago to deliver supplies and mail to remote stations.


Can anyone remember the old brewery carts pulled by a magnificent team of horses ?


Each night of the Show a rodeo was held in the main arena when a team of drovers from Australia took on a team of cowboys from the USA. The night I was there the Australians defeated the USA by 22 points to 14 but the previous night the USA had won by 5 points.


And on and on they came - it seemed a never ending parade as more animals entered the arena with most of them behaving beautifully but there were a few who seemed to be anxious to stay away from others.






As the livestock left the arena, the sun was setting and the flood lights came on....




.....the next event on the programme was the Police musical ride which finished with the horses and riders surrounding the band before marching off.


Then the evening programme began with the Camp Drafting competition. About a dozen steers were driven into an enclosure where a drover had to pick out an animal, stop it from rejoining the rest of the mob and then as the gate was opened, he had to chase it out of the enclosure and around three widely spaced stakes before driving it between two other stakes. The horse and rider had to stay close to the steer and prevent it from getting away from them as it was then classed as a lost animal. At times, the horse's head was only inches away from the beast as they raced at breakneck speed from one stake to another. Once it had been taken through the two stakes, other riders came to help move it back to the enclosure with the other animals where a white blob of paint was placed on its back showing the other competitors that this one had had its turn and couldn't be chosen again.

Because of the vast size of many of the outback stations it isn't always possible to pen the animals up during branding since the drovers go to the animals and not vice versa, so this is the way they separate them.





There was also a demonstration of how a good bullock driver could control his team by his voice alone, getting them to start and stop, turn right or left, go forwards or backwards and even to form a circle just by using his voice.

I also took a lot of photos of the rodeo events but since I am not familiar yet with the manual settings on my camera they all came out rather blurred and unusable - much to my disgust ! I will have to start learning how to alter the settings so that I can take sharper and clearer photos of this event next year.

The final event on the programme was naturally a fireworks display but what the effect on the animals was I don't know - I headed off to catch the bus home after the rodeo had finished.