The cancellation of the 2017 Wingham Show, due to be held this coming weekend, has left many competitors in a state of shock.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Cedar Party’s Chrissy Green has been preparing to show her horses for the past 12 months.
She was all set to enter nine different classes with her ponies and thoroughbreds before news of the cancellation reached her.
“It’s devastating,” Chrissy admits.
“This is a year’s worth of effort. It takes a long, long time to get ready.”
Chrissy has been competing at the Wingham Show for at least four years and was hoping to gain enough points from the local competition to qualify for the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
Now in order to make up the points missed at Wingham, as well as Nabiac Show which was last weekend cancelled due to wet weather, Chrissy will have to travel north.
Competing at shows from Coffs Harbour north is not only more time consuming and will incur extra travel costs, but is also more competitive, suggests Chrissy.
“It’s tougher to get a ribbon and I’ll probably have to do three shows to catch up,” she said.
Chrissy isn’t the only member of her family left devastated by the show’s cancellation.
Her son, 10-year-old Dustin has been hard at work preparing three hens for the chook show together with an assortment of produce.
Since October Dustin has held his own aspirations to compete at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
But despite the disappointment Chrissy admits she is more in shock than angry.
“It’s heartbreaking for the town,” she said.
“There is a lot of older ladies who would have been baking for weeks,” she said.
“But no-one seems really cranky. If they weren’t comfortable holding it then they were right to cancel,” she said of show organiser’s Wingham Show Society.
The Wingham Show Society announced the cancellation of the 2017 show last week due to concerns for public safety and rising costs at the Wingham Showground which is managed by the Wingham Showground Trust.
Wingham Show Society president Elaine Turner said the show committee now wants guarantees from the showground trust that necessary repair work will be carried out to the buildings at the Wingham Showground in the coming months.
Elaine is confident that things will get back on track at the showground and the Wingham Show will be back bigger and better in 2018.
