Amongst the red dirt and flies, horseriders and spectators watch intently as cattle are moved around a small yard.
Horse trainer Jay Charnock is demonstrating how to “cut out” a cow on horseback, the step before it’s then released through a set of gates, and the rider is given 40 seconds to manoeuvre the beast around an area.
Jay Charnock teaches a campdrafting clinic in Topar, far-west NSW. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
Then it’s time up, and the whip is cracked.
In the far west New South Wales locality of Topar, the local campdraft has been running for 30 years.
It also hosts a clinic that delves into the processes and skills necessary to master a “campdraft”.
What is campdrafting?
For those with a passion for horses and thrill-seeking tendencies, the sport is popular, particularly in the bush.
It takes precision, skill and speed, along with a high level of horsemanship and the ability to read cattle behaviour.
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Charnock is a horse trainer from Bulahdelah, on the NSW Mid North Coast, who travels around the country teaching campdrafting and training horses.
Charnock said the sport originated in the bush in livestock camps, when mobs of cattle were being mustered and moved around.
He said that it all started as a “bit of fun”.
Jay Charnock says the sport is family orientated and three or four generations sometimes compete at the same event. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
“One cow might break out [from the mob] … and a fella would be on a horse, and he’d have to go and lap it around, get it off a tree and around another bush and back into the mob.
“I can guarantee there would have been a bit of Aussie larrikinism going on there … they would have said, ‘My horse can do that better than yours.’“
Since then, it’s come a long way, and has become a sport that people travel far and wide for.
The Topar Campdraft celebrated its 30-year anniversary in April. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
In competitions, the aim is to choose a beast from a mob of seven or eight and use your horse to separate it from the rest, before bringing it to the front of the “camp” yard, all while the animal is trying to get back to its “buddies”.
From there, the gates are opened, and the rider and horse chase the cow into an arena “half the size of a football field”. The rider tries to complete the course by steering the cow around two pegs in a figure eight pattern before chasing it through a makeshift gate at the top.
People of a range of ages attended the clinic to hone their campdrafting skills. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
Some make it look easy, and on paper, it might sound straightforward.
But as Charnock said, it’s trickier than it looks.
“It’s a challenging sport because you have to control three brains under pressure,”
he said.
Thirty-year anniversary
Almost 80 kilometres from the city of Broken Hill, the Topar Campdraft grounds sit on the edge of the Barrier Highway.
For 30 years, a committee of volunteers has been running the event.
Robert Gibson competing in the Topar campdraft in 1997. (Supplied: Robert Gibson)
Robert Gibson, a keen campdrafter, was part of the team when it all began.
A former grazier from Glen Idol Station, 55km east of Broken Hill, Mr Gibson is now based near Clare, South Australia, but was the president of the club for 23 years and continues as a committee member.
He said that establishing the event was important for the community.
“A lot of the smaller events [in far west NSW] disappeared,” Mr Gibson said.
“[We] needed something in the bush.“
The community of Topar is located 80km east of Broken Hill. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
Mr Gibson recalled a team of about 30 people helped to get it running, all keen to facilitate an event for the region.
In the beginning, the demand was strong, but Mr Gibson said that it slowly grew over the decades.
“A lot of ’em like to go to the bush ones. They reckon it’s better fun,” he said.
Travelling far and wide
While many participants and attendees are often local to the region, some travel long distances to chase cattle in the Topar arena.
Annabelle Hudson and her family from Beaufort, Victoria, have been travelling the 800km to Topar for about a decade.
Annabelle Hudson has been a regular competitor at the Topar Campdraft. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
Competing in the sport since she was 13 years old, Hudson said she had been around horses and attending events since she could walk.
For the Hudson family, the opportunity to catch up with friends and family, as well as compete in a different environment, keeps them coming back to Topar.
“We just love the feeling of being up here in the red dirt, playing in the red dirt. It’s just so different,”
Hudson said.
Grace Norley is a horseriding instructor and barrel racer from Broken Hill who has competed in Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Victoria.
Grace Norley travels long distances to attend horseriding competitions. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
Campdrafting differs from her usual sport, but Norley said she was keen to pick up some new skills at the Topar Campdrafting clinic.
“There’s a lot of horsemanship that goes into it [campdrafting],” she said.
Lily Anderson, from Cymbric Vale Station, 180km north-east of Broken Hill, has been riding ever since she was little.
Over the past couple of years, while juggling her time away at boarding school in Adelaide, she’s started to attend more horseriding events.
This year’s campdraft and clinic at Topar was her first.
Lily Anderson says that learning the sport is “a lot of fun”. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
“I reckon it’s pretty fun … you’ve got to have a lot of skills and a lot of patience for it,” she said.
Anderson said the trickiest parts involve being able to read the cattle and knowing how to keep them in the right spot.
“You’ve got to really know your horse well and know how to use your legs and your arms,” she said.
A growing sport
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As Charnock travels around the country teaching and honing the skills of current and up-and-coming campdrafters, he is noticing the sport is gaining popularity.
“Just mind-blowing how big it’s getting,”
he said.
The Topar campdraft attracts competitors from far and wide. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)
It’s not just those in rural areas who enjoy the thrill. Charnock said he was seeing it get bigger Australia-wide, and the next generation was going to bring fierce competition.
“A lot has happened in the last 10 years of campdrafting,” he said.
“Some of the kids coming through are just amazing. They’re going to be very hard to beat down the track.”
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