About 40 competitors from Waikato to Invercargill will take part in the New Zealand ploughing championships this weekend in Middlemarch.
This year’s event is organised by championships convener, Middlemarch local Sean Leslie — who is also the defending champion for the horse class.
He said it was a "huge undertaking’’ for a small rural community to host the championships and he had roped-in everyone he knew to help out.
The championships had developed into a "mini A&P show’’, Mr Leslie said.
He had been taking part in the event since 2011 and had won multiple national titles, including one for the horse ploughing class last year in Waikato.
It had taken countless hours to become a title-winning ploughman.
"It’s not just something you pick up overnight.
He said a horse was not like a car, you do not just get in and turn the key.
"You've got to learn how to turn the key and how it starts and everything else.’’
The competition was going to be fierce this year.
"It’s going to be bloody hard for me to win,’’ he said.
Mr Leslie said horse ploughing was a dying art and he competed to keep the sport alive.
Though he had ploughed using a tractor, the quietness and historic value of doing it with a horse had him hooked, he said.
He was excited about defending his title on home soil.
