The Southern Counties Heavy Horse Association

Great All England Ploughing Match Championships and Show of Heavy Horses
Sunday 18th October 1998

Continued...

D Peters with Brigadier.

Cyril Knowles had a marvellous day since in addition to his victories already mentioned, his yearling, Pooley, was adjudged the best in his class and he won the Single Trade Turnout class with Mac. Top young handler was Jessica Field with Nobby. It is good to see these classes at shows and hopefully more children will begin channeling their equine interests into heavy horses - who are in any case becoming more popular under saddle too...

There was a very well supported Class for the Horse in Cart Harness - which was won by H & B Willis Medstead Royale. (We will, in a future issue, look at Harness Classes from a judge s point of view).

Time to relax - John Goodwin awaiting the presentation of awards.

M & D Wilson s Overbrook was the best Two Year Old and the remaining classes were for Farm Turnouts - both Single and Pairs. These classes are always interesting because of the great variety of the vehicles, which of course differ from region to region and according to their purpose. The winner of the single Farm Turnout was D Peters with Brigadier and Andy Withers took the Pairs Class with Lawrence and Alfred pulling a Hampshire boat waggon.

Long shadows - and a ring full of horses.

The surroundings were of course rural, the show being held at Cross Farm, courtesy of Mr and Mrs Raymond Stovold, who kindly presented the trophies, but the quality of the classes measured up to those at larger shows and were well worth watching. All the horses who competed in the in-hand and harness classes paraded in the ring and it was a wonderful sight.

As the sun was lowering in the sky and people and horses cast long shadows over the show ground, all the contestants from the ploughing matches made their way to the ring to receive their awards. Some rode their horses in and other didn t, but the most amazing thing was that they seemed to just keep on coming! It seemed possible that the ring would not accommodate them all as they stood up in three or more lines the complete length of the ring... a quick count confirmed that there were over seventy horses in the ring all at once, and they had all competed in the ploughing matches.

(Tail piece) See you next year!

It was a glorious sight, a privilege to see, and one which is surely encouraging for the future?

The Southern Counties Heavy Horse Association is to be commended for taking such an initiative and for establishing these trials which have grown and flourished. I never thought I would see so many horses ploughing in a Surrey field... but it was certainly well worth the wait...

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