Wairio Hack Club president George Broughton, a farmer at Scott’s Gap near Otautau, said more than 20 people had signalled they would attend a club fundraising event in Balfour on November 4.
The event would feature a series of games for horse riders as part of a fundraising campaign to buy material to restore horse paddocks at two back-country huts in the Eyre Mountains next month.
At the upcoming event in Balfour, the games which club members had floated include riders liberating calves, collecting water in buckets and popping balloons hanging on trees.
"Another one suggested was the game ‘monkey on a rope’, where you have a passenger on the back of your horse and you ride up to a rope hanging from a tree or a tractor and your passenger has to grab the rope and latch on to it, while you ride away and then come back and pick them up again."
To be successful in the game, riders needed double-banking skills and a horse keen to go near someone swinging on a rope, Mr Broughton said.
He applauded the people who had helped organise the Balfour event, including local saddle-maker Nigel Cameron and his partner Sonia.
The event, which was at Owen Evans’ property Longridge Station at 575 Biggar Rd, ran from 9.30am up to 4pm.
Entry to the event cost $55 and included lunch.
He expected registrations to be reduced by several other horse events on the same day including the Northern Southland Pony Club Show in Lumsden, the Eastern Southland Hunt Trek in Owaka and the High Country Pleasure Riders fundraising event in Bannockburn.
The club had never considered changing the date of its fundraising event.
"You can’t worry about that — it happens all through summer, you’ve just got to choose your day and go with it."
Money raised at a similar club event, on Monkey Island Beach in Western Southland in July last year, helped buy warratahs and wire for the restoration of horse paddocks at Careys Hut at the head of Mavora Lake and Upper Oreti Hut, south of South Mavora Lake.
"People have been using those and we’ve had good feedback.
"The [Goldfields] Cavalcade are visiting one of them and they are offering to donate money to us because they value what we have been doing — which is quite cool to be honest."
