Meat and Wool Cup - virtually - still Hawke's Bay A & P Show highlight

Not a lot of cattle at the show, but the children still found them. Sienna Deller and others schoolmate's from St Mary's with Haggis the bull at the show's popular Farmyard Zoo. Photo / Paul Taylor

Judging for one of the historic Hawke's Bay A and P Show's major animal-class prizes has gone online as the impact of multiple issues over recent years continues.

As the three-day show started today (Wednesday) at Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings judging in the Meat and Wool Cup for beef cattle classes was being done in front of screens, with entries from as far afield as North Auckland and Canterbury.

Each entry required a one-minute video and specified images of the stock, and at the end, late on Thursday, the winner of the Hawke's Bay show's Meat and Wool Cup, presented originally by the New Zealand Meat and Wool magazine, as at other shows, will be announced, probably without the winning stock or breeder present.

It hasn't been presented since 2019, with the Covid-19 crisis having limited the event two years ago, and forced its cancellation last year, but while the cattle aren't around the showgrounds this year, the A and P Society hopes they will return in the future.

The show three years ago provided the third Meat and Wool Cup win at Hastings for the Rauriki Charolais stud of Southern Hawke's Bay studmaster Simon Collin, at the time also in the middle of his 2017-2022 term as society president, and now somehow inheriting the role of head of the Cattle Section.

Without the cattle at the show on its opening day, he was able to attend to some of the necessities at home on the farm usually delayed until after the show.

"I'm drafting sheep," he said, but he does have two entries in the cattle classes being judged, apparently from home also, by Patrick Crawshaw.

At the showgrounds, there is, however, still the array of other animals, in keeping with the rural show history in New Zealand dating back as much as 180 years – since the Auckland show, now known as the Royal Easter Show, was first held in 1843.

They include sheep, pigs, donkeys, and poultry, while there are also the usual horses and ponies, sheep and dogs of the equestrian events in the main arena, including Friday's opening round of New Zealand's highest-ranking showjumping series, the FEI World Cup qualifying.

All eyes are likely to be on a trio of riders who competed in the Australian World Cup League - three-time New Zealand series winner Tegan Fitzsimon, of West Melton, two-time New Zealand final winner and current Horse of the Year champion rider Brooke Edgecombe, of Waipukurau, and Philip Steiner, of Tauranga.

Thursday's schools' shearing competition in the woolshed (at the Elwood Rd entrance) will be followed on Friday by the Great Raihania Shears on Friday, marking 120 years since Hawke's Bay staged the world's first machine shearing competition.

It also carries world title hopes, including the third of eight rounds in the Wools of New Zealand selection series to find two wool handlers for the New Zealand team at the World Championships next year, with competitors expected to include former world champions Sheeree Alabaster, of Taihape, and Keryn Herbert, of Te Kuiti, and Hawke's Bay's own Angela Stevens.

The daughter of 2017 world champion shearer John Kirkpatrick, Stevens would otherwise have been representing New Zealand for the first time on Friday in a trans-Tasman test in Bendigo, Vic., an event postponed because the facilities have become a base for flood evacuees.

The sheep dog trials, to the east of the exhibition hall, also include an array of New Zealand champion and representative trialists.

A and P show societies are invariably among the oldest organisations throughout New Zealand, outlasting schools and almost everything else in their areas.

The Hawke's Bay show is among the oldest, dating back to 1863, and the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand still lists 83 A and P shows around the country this summer – from the Poverty Bay (its 142nd year) and Ellesmere (belatedly marking a centenary) shows last weekend to the Royal Easter Show in Auckland in April.

They are part of a tradition introduced by British colonialists hankering for the days of such events as the Royal Highland Show at Islington, Edinburgh, which has a history dating back to the Highland Society of Edinburgh in 1784.

Its first show was held in 1822 – sparking such other shows as Royal Bath and West, Great Yorkshire and Royal Welsh.

The Royal Highland bi-centenary was held in June this year, originally intended to feature a strong New Zealand link in the staging of the Golden Shears World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships, which because of the global pandemic had to be postponed until next June.

Hawke's Bay, the first of four historic A and P Shows in Hawke's Bay each summer, celebrated 150 years in 2013, and has regularly attached the acclaim of Royal Show, appointed by the RAS, as it did from 2015 to 2019, and would have this year had it not been for the impact of the pandemic and its restrictions.

The Central Hawke's Bay A and P Show, which marked its centenary in 2011, will be held in Waipukurau on November 11-12, the Wairoa A and P Show, first held in 1899, will be on January 20-21, and the Dannevirke and Districts A and P Show, first held in 1910, will be on February 3-5.

They are part of an eastern and central regions circuit which also includes the Wairarapa show on October 28-30 at Clareville, Carterton, and the Manawatu show at Manfeild, Feilding, on November 5-6.

While the future of Royal Show status around the country is currently under review, Royal Event status this summer has been awarded to classes at Stratford show (November 25-27, beef cattle and pigs), Horowhenua (January 19-22, dairy cattle), Central Otago (February 11, home industries) and Mackenzie County (April 10, sheep).

The 83 shows throughout the country span 24 weekends, excluding Christmas and New Year, with 37 in the North Island and 46 in the South Island.