The Man From Snowy River Bush Festival - Corryong Days Four To Seven

Thursday the 8th of April, the start day for the festival, finally arrived. For the next four days we were to enjoy a great festival with so much to see. I am writing this now, five days after the start of the festival as I did not get time to do so during it. I wasn’t about to miss the good stuff by spending time on the blog so I am doing my best now to remember everything. That Thursday morning there were a lot of juniors competing so we did not hurry over to the festival. I think I did a power walk to the town lookout and we got some shopping done and had a coffee in town. Town was just a short walk from camp. We went into the festival grounds after lunch. I firstly had a look at a demonstration of cutting, cutting horses, that is. Ooh that still doesn’t probably help you. It is about the rider and horse separating cattle, not actually cutting a poor horse. The name of the guy doing the demonstrating was Phil Webb who is a bit of a legend who has done a lot of horse work in the US. The horse he was riding was this beautiful charcoal grey colour.

Phil then demonstrated the cutting on another horse. Pretty to watch, the horse and the demo but I don’t have a video to capture the skills.

We then watched the first round of the Trainer’s Challenge. This challenge goes over three days for about an hour and a half each day. Young horses who have never been ridden nor handled by humans are approached for the very first time by the trainers. The expectation is at the end of the three days these horses will be broken in and ridable, in a way that has caused the horse no stress, so as to make them usable and trainable horses for future owners to take over. The horses must be trained to be responsive to the gentle touch of the riders hands on the bridle on both sides. There is so much more that is entailed in this training that I won’t bore you with it all. A fair bit of repetition takes place to train the horses in the right way. This hour and a half each day was fully utilized. There are three trainers who are specially selected for the challenge. So it is a bit of a showcase for the public to enjoy. We all found this challenge incredibly interesting. Each of the three trainers had their own methods and strategies. The first photos are of Lee who is a young man who chose this grey horse.

The next photos are of Flinders, an even younger man at 17, who chose this bay horse. Don’t let his youthful looks fool you. Even at that age he is a very experience trainer.

The third trainer was Andrew Sheridan who was the older and more experienced of the trainers. He chose this chestnut horse.

Like I said they had their own methods but also the horses had their own difficulties for the trainers to master. The grey fought with Lee the whole way and he had his work cut out for him. It did not want to be touched on the head at all. Lee had to spend a lot of time at the start of each training session just working his way in to get near the grey. Flinders had an extremely gentle approach and developed a great infinity with his bay. Andrew used a huge number of props to desensitize his horse. The strategy involved pushing the horse a bit without stressing the horse unduly and then backing off and then developing a chumminess with the horse as the pressure was released. I felt that Lee could have used some of those strategies with his grey, but what would I know. One of the clever things Andrew did was to ride another horse alongside the chestnut so as to get the horse to have some forward movement which had developed as a problem during the training.

A couple of the trainers also managed to get their horse to willingly go into a horse float. Like I said it was such an interesting thing to watch. Would you believe that the winner of the challenge was the 17 year old Flinders. He showed skills and experience beyond his age.

The next morning I went over to the Equine Education area and watched Phil Webb give some instruction about horsemanship.

Following that I went and had a look at the Packsaddle Challenge. That challenge is one of several challenges including, bareback riding, shoeing, stock handling and whip cracking on horseback. The combined scores in these challenges result in a top ten of men and top five of women. The top five women then compete in a brumby catching challenge to determine the winner. The top ten men compete in a brumby catching challenge and a bronc riding challenge to determine the winner. So back to the Packsaddle Challenge. I watched the eventual winner of the whole thing, Morgan Webb, pack his horse. The idea of the packsaddle challenge is that the horse is packed with tools and provision that a stockman needs to work and spend time in the bush at least overnight. It has to be packed in such a way that it is comfortable for the horse and does not get lost from the horse whilst brushing up against trees and handling small jumps and rough terrain.

I didn’t manage to catch photos of Morgan travelling with his horse but got a couple of this next guy. Some of the items to be packed are shown, and includes a chain saw, so some awkward items.

Then Linda and I had a look at the Bareback riding. They are so skillful. They have to walk their horse on a narrow trestle.

They have to have their horse straddle over the top of rails in a Z pattern and travel over those rails. Therefore by using their feet in the correct places they cause their horse to cross over front legs and back legs at the right time to travel over the rails.

They also grab a rail with a boiling billy over it and walk their horse around in a perfect circle and then walk their horse in reverse.

The rider also has to back his horse through a ditch before a tight passage between hay bails.

There is the handling of the horse going up and down a hill whilst cracking a whip.

Jumping the horse.

Then there is a time of free style. All of this mind you is bareback riding.

Next up I went over to the camp draft arena for some stock handling. This was about getting three cattle through a gate and a narrow race and around obstacles. So hard but they are so good.

Meanwhile the campgrounds (ie golf course) has continued to fill up. This huge Ford ute tows this big horse float with lovely accommodation.

There are about four thousand camping tickets this year. It has been building every year but the numbers were restricted this year.

That afternoon Riley’s Riders came into the Rodeo Arena. These guys set off on a ride, four or five days earlier from Tom Groggin to commemorate the Man From Snowy River. The legend is based on a true character, Jack Riley who is buried in the Corryong Cemetery. The riders also take part in the re-enactment. We didn’t go to the re-enactment this year as we went last time.

After Riley’s Riders were done we watched the Trainers Challenge which I have covered earlier. Following that we went back to camp for a fire and dinner. We were loving this time I can tell you.

After dinner it was time for the country music concert. So over we went and listened to Fanny Lumsden, followed by Troy Cassar Daley followed by Blake O’Connor. They were all so good.

So that was Friday. What a full day that was, just awesome. Saturday morning involved another walk up to the lookout. Not as sunny that day, a bit of cloud and quite cold. There were markets on as well which the girls loved. Quentin and Louise went to the re-enactment as it was their first MFSRBF. Following some shopping and a coffee in town I headed down to the festival and l saw Fanny Lumsden and Blake O’Connor again.

I think I checked out some of the challenges and then there was the Trainers Challenge on again. Then it was back to camp to relax, have a fire of course and dinner. Then the BIG ONE, the rodeo. This was awesome. I have only got videos so I hope they come out ok. Following the rodeo was Dany Phegan and his band who were awesome. Danny is a horseman and a local who has four daughters competing in the challenges and can sing.

Sunday morning was beautiful and so were my eggs.

It is good to have the competitors and their horses so close to us, right next door in the showground surrounds.

I went over and watched some horse riding education. There is so much to riding a horse that I had no idea about. This girl’s horse lost its right eyeball at a young age so it has to have total trust in her when it is turning right, rounding a yard to the right and doing anything in a right hand motion. I wonder if this is one reason why this young girl became a great trainer.

We then took our seats for the Brumby Catch for the top five women contestants, and then the Brumby Catch and Bronc Ride for the top ten men contestants. I realise now I didn’t get any photos of that. I figured I already had rodeo videos so did not bother but the brumby catching was fantastic and would have made for some great viewing. The crowd were really packed in for the rodeo and not much less for these activities. I though I would get some photos to give you an idea of the huge crowd that there was. Half of the crowd had left when I got these photos so you have to imagine all the seats full.

So the MFSRBF was pretty much over and we went back to camp to relax, have a fire and dinner, as you do. We were joined by Paul and Liz who we met while queued to come into the Festival grounds the previous Sunday night. As I have said many times before it is great meeting people on the road and we are still friends with many that we have met. Hopefully we will see them again. Kevin also joined us. He was camped beside us and had joined us by the fire a couple of days earlier.

Monday morning arrived and it was time to pack up and leave. A bit of a sad feeling really as we had such a good time. But we started driving out about 9.45am as we had to be out by 10am so the golfers could have their golf course back. We stopped our vans at Paul & Liz’s van to say goodbye. Paul was in the shower and there was no way they were going to be out by 10am. I yelled to him and Liz that the golfers were lining up on the tee and there would be golf balls dropping around them soon. They are not the sought of people to get stressed which they didn’t.