Campdrafting - the fence-sitters guide

This past weekend, horsemen and women from near and far gathered at a paddock almost an hour's drive from Granite Glen. Dozens and dozens of goosenecks, horse floats, and trucks both old and new, descended on this particular paddock as they do every year on this weekend.

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They brought their best and most competitive horses, these men and women. Many own or work cattle properties. Many don't. Some are even desk jockeys in their 9-5 careers. Some are young - barely in their teens. Others are in their 70's. But out here, in this paddock, they are simply campdrafters.

(Note to my non-horsey people - hang in there and enjoy the photos... there's a couple worth waiting for at the end!)

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Campdrafting is an amazing, fast, skilful, often thrilling, sometimes dangerous sport born in this part of the world. According to the official campdrafting website :

The sport of campdrafting has its origins in the early days of the Australian stockman, and is believed to have begun in rural Queensland in the early part of the twentieth century.
When drovers needed to select individual cattle from a mob to drive them to a separate holding area, the stockman would "cut out" the beast from the mob. This was achieved through the skills of the horse and rider to block the attempts of the beast to follow his natural instincts in returning to the mob. This was usually done when large mobs of cattle were mustered together and held by a team of horsemen on the open plain, while the nominated rider did the "cutting out". Over time, stockmen developed competitions based around this activity, which have evolved into the uniquely Australian sport as we know it today.

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My own family have competed in this sport for decades. My Dad was a pretty hot competitor until both his knees gave up on him. His mother was Australian champion for three years. My brother continues to compete. I DID try it out when I was in my late teens, and loved it. Although I am not nearly fearless enough a rider to be successful, the thrill of getting a 'round' was quite a buzz. I'm happy just to sit quietly on an old hack these days. But back to the "real riders".

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For those not au fait with this sport, I'll try and explain.

(The fence-sitters version).

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A judge sits astride a horse in the campdraft arena with a whip slung over one shoulder - s/he will score the horse and rider on three things:

Cutout (max 26 points)

Horsework (max 70 points)

Course (max 4 points).

Confused yet? Don't be.

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THE CUTOUT

A mob of cattle (say eight to ten) are put into a yard called the "camp". The competitor will enter the camp and select one animal (we call an individual bovine - regardless of gender - a 'beast' ... luckily they don't seem to take offence).

The competitor then has to seperate it from the mob cleanly and quickly and take it to the front of the camp. Gates at the front of this area lead out to a large arena, and at the command of the rider, the gates are opened. The judge decides how much skill and precision the horse and rider have shown in this section and award points accordingly.
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You lose points for the beast moving back towards the mob, and if the chosen beast gets back to the mob twice, the judge cracks the whip. This ain't good. Cracked off in the camp means no score. The rider slinks off and hopes no-one is looking.

When it is done well, the cut-out is like equine-bovine ballet - they face each other and the horse responds almost instantaneously to the beast, mirroring its moves.

The rider here is one of our neighbours. We'll call him Harv. This is his wife, Elle.

She gets all nervous and wrought up when Harv rides. She's a great chick and she makes me laugh. Specially when she does stuff like this. These two are also the biggest party animals of all time. But I'll save that for another post.
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So the rider is ready to leave the camp and calls out "Let's go" or something to that effect, the gates open, and with any luck, the beast, horse and rider head out those gates and onto the course proper.
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THE COURSE

Consists of four 'pegs' making up three challenges - a first peg, a second peg and a gate (two pegs). They need to be negoitated as such:

This is a right-hand course. You can also have a left-hand course, which is usually only for advanced competitions.

First peg is worth two points, the second peg worth one point (total 3) and the gate is worth one point (total 4).

A missed peg can be renegotiated - but miss twice and that dreaded whip cracks. No score.

Getting all four points (and through the final gate) is a Full Course. This is my cousin's hubby Jay - he got a full course and had to donate $2 to the St John Ambulance for losing his hat! We don't let anyone get away with anything - keeps us grounded!

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HORSEWORK

Depending on the kind of cattle being used for the campdraft, the course is usually negotiated pretty fast.

No trotting or Saturday afternoon hacking around here my friends.

Galloping and flying changes are required in the arena.

The skill is in guiding the beast around this pegs as tightly as possibly - the faster the time, the higher the horsework score.

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If (unlike me) you can add up you'll see that the ultimate score is 100. I have never seen this achieved. A 90 is a pretty amazing score. I think there was one all weekend (about 200 runs).

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The really great thing about this sport is that it brings together such hardworking people whose skills are usually hidden away on properties. They are passionate about their sport and their horses, and spectators like me get to soak in the spectacle and smell of horse sweat and saddles. Mmmmmm ... and they get to fall in love with glorious steeds like this one:

SSB was getting concerned that I worked on this photo for so long... but he needn't get jealous. The owner rider here is Ken May, a famous Aussie horse handler. Sorry Ken, you rode great and all, but I can't stop looking at your stallion!

Isn't he divine?

Eye-candy for horse lovers!
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So there you go - The fence-sitters' guide to campdrafting.

BB

PS I wish I could say this was me, fence-sitting. But my butt fills out (and overflows) my Levis a little more thoroughly than this! So we'll sign off with my friend W's butt and spurs instead. She not only looks great on a fence, she's a great horsewoman as well. Lucky I'm not the envious type. Not really.

Happy horsemanship (or fencemanship)!