Up to 300 competitors with more than 500 dogs will gather in Gore next week for the South Island and New Zealand sheep dog trial finals.
Southland Sheep Dog Trial Centre spokeswoman Marie Horrell, said dogs and competitors would attempt more than 1000 runs during the event, which starts on Monday and finishes next Saturday.
Competition starts at 8am on Monday with the South Island finals, and then the top seven finishers in each of the four events will take part in a run-off for the four New Zealand titles - long head and short head and yard for heading dogs and zig-zag hunt and straight hunt for the barking huntaway dogs.
Those events were expected to start on Friday and finish on Saturday but Mrs Horrell said the large field could mean the New Zealand final run-offs will not start until Saturday.
She said more than half the 300 competitors would come from the North Island, with many of those running huntaway dogs.
