A&P Show Back On Track

The countdown is on to this year’s Canterbury A&P Show which opens its gates on Thursday 13 November.

It’s the second year that the show will run until Saturday, making it easier for families and those from out of town. Sir David Carter, Chair of the Canterbury A&P Association (CAPA), said livestock will be exhibited on all three days.

“We trialled Saturday last year and it worked really well for us. It means that if Show Day itself is wet – the day we traditionally used to get the biggest crowds – then there’s also Saturday. The other real benefit is a reduction in traffic congestion on Show Day because the Saturday is available.”

This year’s event has special meaning, being conferred the status of Royal A&P Show of New Zealand for the first time since 2010.

Sir David said winning at a Royal Show brings considerable prestige for exhibitors and helps consolidate the Canterbury A&P Show after last year’s uncertainty.

“A Royal Show tends to attract far more entries because of its elevated nature and is just what we need to help our continued rejuvenation. It’s the highest honour a regional agricultural and pastoral show can receive in New Zealand.”

It’s already been a real boon with the show attracting 400 trade sites and livestock entries 60 per cent up on 2024 – including a huge increase in dairy cattle to 380, 267 beef cattle entries, and more than 700 sheep.

“Those numbers are very heartening and reflect the collaboration between the Board and the General Committee to inject new life into the show,” Sir David said.

Wool is centre stage at this year’s show with a designated Wool Zone in a marquee showing the multitude of uses for the fibre today.

Entries are pouring in for the New Zealand Corriedale Shearing Championships, a feature event of the Show this year.

Shearers will be working with the same Corriedale sheep from Marble Point Station at Hanmer Springs that we’ve had for the past six or eight championships,” Dave says.

“It means that the shearers can expect an even and predictable line of sheep showing up in the catching pens.”

The NZ Corriedale Shearing Championships are the third of the six-leg Wrightson PGG Mixed Breed Shearing Competition Circuit whose final will be held at the Masterton Golden Shears in the first week of March next year.

Sir David said the Corriedale breed has played an important role in Canterbury history. It was the first new breed of sheep established in this country, officially sanctioned by the New Zealand Sheep Breeders Association in 1905, and it has since been taken up by farmers all round the world.

“The name Corriedale comes from the North Otago farm where James Little developed the breed by crossing finewool merinos with English long-wool Lincoln and Leicester sheep in the late 1800s.

“He was setting out to create a dual-purpose sheep that could produce both meaty lambs for the newly established frozen meat trade in Britain, and what we call mid-micron wool today, finer than strongwool but not as fine as finewool,” Sir David says.

“This year’s Corriedale shearing competition comes in the up-beat environment of wool prices rising more – and more sustainably – than they’ve done in decades.”

Other highlights include:

• A fashion parade of wool-based garments will run in the shearing pavilion at lunch time, on both Friday and Saturday
• A Grand Parade on both Friday and Saturday
• All youth competitions will be on Saturday morning
• The Wood Chopping will feature a South Island versus New South Wales test match across all three show days
• New for this year is a Cowboy Challenge competition for horse and rider completing a series of tasks, to be held indoors along with a farrier competition in the Riding for the Disabled building at the south end of the main ring
• The return of agricultural heavyweights Ravensdown with a marquee looking onto the main arena and Silver Fern Farms are taking a large ringside site next to the Members Marquee.

The Show is open to the public 9:30am–4:30pm each day with parking available at Hayton Road, Augustine Drive, and McMahon Road. To avoid congestion, competitors and traders will be arriving earlier.

“Traffic used to be a real bugbear for visitors but the changes we made last year meant things ran much more smoothly and we’re making some further refinements this year,” Sir David said.

Organisers are encouraging people to buy tickets online to speed up entry into the grounds, avoiding long queues. Tickets bought at the gate are slightly more expensive.

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