Skylar Pukeroa and Keisha Paku from Carterton enjoyed being among the largest Saturday crowd at a Wairarapa A&P Show.
Families swell show numbers
Organisers of the 141st Wairarapa A&P Show promised the biggest and busiest show yet and delivered it.
The show, which wrapped up at the Clareville Showgrounds on Sunday afternoon, had a record-breaking attendance, Wairarapa A&P Society president Melvin Pike said, with Saturday the best of the two days.
Event entries were also high, with those attending seeing everything from pets to top farm animals and all the other skills that go with rural life.
“The dog trials have had huge runs and the horses are still going flat out,” Pike said on Sunday afternoon.
The dog trials went on until after 6pm on Saturday with 77 runs. And they did it all again on the Sunday.
That’s a lot of sheep rounded up.
Pike said because it was the first show of the year, dog trial competitors who had worked hard all winter on training their dogs were there to see how they would go.
“This is the time to start testing them to see how they’re going to measure up and if they are going to cut the mustard,” he said.
There was also a big entry in the shearing competition and they also didn’t get finished until late on Saturday.
The pet dog competition on Sunday attracted many families to the show.
“That’s one of the things we’ve noticed this year is that the numbers of families at the show have been well up on normal,” Pike said.
“There’s been ‘pram-loads’ of them.”
People dressed like their pet dogs in a fancy dress “matchy, matchy” section or they could dress their pet dog as a tradie.
A display by horse whisperer Tui Teka on Sunday afternoon was a show stopper.
