Barastoc Horse of the Year Show
The Barastoc Horse of the Year show is now in its 38th year and is the best known show in Australia.
It is well known overseas, and with the advent of email and mobile phones, the results of what is called The Greatest Show on Turf quickly spread around the world.
Held on the green expanses of Werribee Park, the huge centre is filled with horses and competitors from early Thursday until late Sunday night.
Most competitors would rather win there than at the Royal Show. Horses are advertised for sale as being a 'potential Barastoc winner' or 'top 10 Barastoc' or 'top 15 in Barastoc'. It’s the vendor’s way of saying the horse is a future star.
Peter Gahan, a Victorian EFA Committee man and for many years a mill manager for the firm, has been a moving force for the show, right from the start in 1969.
"It was Fred Wiltshire's idea. He put the proposal to the company," said Peter. "His idea was to give the saddle horse section more importance and to increase patronage at agricultural shows.
He suggested classes, for horse, galloway, and pony, be held during the Olympic Park showjumping championships, which were held back in the 70’s. It was an appropriate setting held at the dog track beside the Yarra River, and that the winners of the three sections would be the Victorian champions".
"We worked out that a points system would work best. I think it was five points for a champion, four for reserve and three for a first placing," Peter said.
These were gained by attending agricultural shows around Victoria, and the highest scoring horses got to compete.
There was no difficulty selecting the top 10, point scoring horses for each section and the horses and riders were happy to work around between the jumps to be judged - between rounds of the Victorian showjumping championships.
The show exhibitors loved it from the start. The first winners of the Barastoc awards were Birrahlee Christopher, a 14hh APSB black pony gelding ridden by Margaret McIntyre of Shepparton, Shenandoah, a snow white gelding won the Galloway section with Beverly Thomas and the former champion racehorse Lure with Malcolm Barnes.
Lure was to eventually win the title three times, a record which stood for many years until one of the greatest show horses Australia has seen, called Picasso was to take it out an unbelievable four times.
It outgrew the Olympic Park venue, where parking was always a problem with horses and in 1977 the show moved to the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds.
People hate to move and some were nervous about the change, but it was necessary. This was also the year the first set workout was conducted.
"We decided it was the only way to go. We had previously allowed the judges to work out the workouts, but too often they couldn't agree, or couldn't do it," Peter said.
"Once I remember asking two blokes who were friends, but hadn't seen each other for years, to plan a workout, and they said "well, we'll have them trot out...whatever happened to that good hack you had, you know the big chestnut?" and the other would answer, "he got sent overseas, you know." And then they'd try to remember where they had got to, before remembering another old time horse or person."
The workouts were created by Peter and Marie Gahan, Marie is a well known dressage rider. "It's got so that we had to sign them as ours," Peter said, as the workouts began to pop up at other state shows. Victoria’s Barastoc was the first state championship show for show horses. The other states quickly followed.. "The workouts are designed to show the horse in all paces from both sides. We try to allow the judges to see all they want. Flying changes are optional because not many hacks do them well. The champion of the state should be able to do work commensurate to the title," he said.
In 1979 picking the fields via the points system stopped and the qualifying by championship began.
"A journalist wrote that we had created a monster. Kids were being kept away from school and missing parties and things because their mums were determined to qualify. People were coming to us and saying, 'I have this really lovely horse, but I'll never get to start because I can't chase shows', so the EFA talked about it, and we changed the rules," Peter said.
In theory this meant that with 120 agricultural shows in Victoria, it would be possible to have 120 horses in each class, but usually around half that, enter. It was around this time the saddle horse sections stopped being subordinate to the jumping classes and people began to advertise their animals as potential winners.
The Stock Horse section was added and in 1986 the Shetland of the Year class began. In 1990 the small pony championships for ponies 12hh was held for the first time and under and got 30 entries, which was tremendous. These were followed by Show Hunters, another section which has been copied around Australia, Leading Rein Pony, First Ridden Pony and Working Hunters..
The most important part of any show is the selection of the judges. The Barastoc sub-committee uses interstate people selected from a list of recommendations. It’s not an easy task as four are used in a panel for the main sections.
" When names are suggested, inquiries are then made about the people to make sure they are suitable, and then they are asked. We have made a few mistakes, but generally it has been satisfactory," Peter said
In recent years, one younger judge has been asked as one of the four, to allow top quality young people their first chance at officiating at a really big show. Most have gone on to do other important jobs. It is another way Barastoc assists in the betterment of the sport. Young stewards are also encouraged to help out, and the committee feels that all competitors would benefit from doing this job for at least one year.
Around this time, the Victorian EFA sub-committee had a big problem. "The show was an enormous success, and this in a way was its problem. "We had record entries, we couldn't cope with any more, yet for the three years up until this we had suffered a substantial financial loss," Peter said.
The main reason for this was the fact the Melbourne Showgrounds has too many gate entries, and too many things going on, on the same day, so the gate was no indication of the attendance because people got in for nothing. But this was only one of the problems, with so many entries, the parking situation was impossible.
The parking area was so congested that the organizers began to fear that if there had been a fire, a disaster could happen. This, plus the constant financial loss, made us look elsewhere.
So in 1991 show the sub-committee took an enormous risk and recommended that the show move to Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre.
Some extra sections were added to the show because of the extra space. Harness and Warmbloods and extra showjumping classes used up some of the available area.
Trade stands became part of the show, plus a varied catering section.
The show always prides itself on running to time, and has never run late, even with big classes of up to 80 starters. There are good stewards, and firm ringmasters. There have been three in the 34 year history. Peter Gahan, Fran Cleland and now Fiona Mardling.
With a four panel judge system, with the horses judged by consensus, the manner in which the winners are selected is strictly controlled.
Each judge in the Newcomer and Barastoc Championship section judges one preliminary section.
All four judge the final. A three to one verdict for a horse means majority rules A 50/50 verdict or total disagreement (hasn’t happened yet) means that the judge who did the preliminary does the casting vote. “It works very well that way,” says Fiona Mardling. “In fact much easier than with a panel of three.”.
The show generally runs like clockwork, but of course with 34 years history, Peter Gahan has memories of times when things went wrong.
"There was the judge who was so cocky. We always have a dinner on the night before, so that the judges get to meet their stewards, so they understand that we work strictly to a timetable and get told about any problems they might have," he recalled. "This judge knew it all, and he was so confident. But the next day, confronted with 60 hacks, he was so lost he took two hours to get his top 10, and came out of the ring very late and apologetic. 'I stuffed that up', he said.
"And there was a steward with the same attitude who had done a similar job at other shows. When the numbers for the finalists were given, he wound up with 11 instead of 10. "We didn't ask him back," said Peter succinctly.
“I remember when Bill Roycroft judged the hacks, and the only male rider was the winner. Bill always has a sense of humor. He looked down the row and said, 'if I was you, I would get the hell out of here'.
"At Olympic Park, the showjumping riders used to have great fun, hissing at the hacks from behind the jumps to see if they could upset them. There was one time, a lady was concentrating so hard that she rode right over the judges. And once, when Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands presented the ribbons, one of the EFA committee was so excited, he changed his suit three times in the day and made absolutely sure he was in the photo".
The parade of champions has now been run for five years and is the final highlight of the show, when horses from all sections – Stockhorses, Ponies, All the peripheral led sections, and showjumpers come together to parade just prior to the announcement of the champion hack.
The name Barastoc came from 'Balanced Rations for Stock' and now really should go into the dictionary as the name of a champion horse winner.
It's synonymous with quality - a real success story and we try to keep it that way.