ACCORDING to Koraleigh farmer Barry McKenzie, sheepdog trials are a retired person’s sport.
“Most have been doing it for 30 or 40 years, although there’s a young Victorian chap who is 17 and he’s quite good,” Mr McKenzie said.
Mr McKenzie was introduced to sheepdog competitions when he was 30-years-old, but he was too busy on the farm back then, and tucked the interest away for a later time in his life.
He was fascinated by the total control the dog owners seemed to have over the sheepdogs and the skill involved in keeping three sheep within a nine metre corridor with no external barriers.
It’s no easy ask, requiring near-total trust between man and dog.
“When I first got started I thought it was too hard,” Mr McKenzie said.
“One day I thought, bugger it… but then I started to win a prize or two.
“Crikey, it’s hard though.”
Since seriously starting to trial five years ago, Mr McKenzie has achieved enormous success — recently receiving a coveted appointment to the New South Wales judges panel, a position he says has given him great insight into the sport.
He travels regularly around Australia for sheepdog trials and most recently took out first place in the invitational only event Champion of Champions in South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, with the help of his most successful sheepdog — a border collie named Flo.
“She’s easy to handle,” Mr McKenzie said.
“Good dogs never lose a sheep.
“At every trial some sheep escape, which is an instant disqualification.”
A ‘dog motel’ at the farm in Koraleigh holds five border collies — three mature ones for trial and two young ones for future trialling.
With the exception of his Scottish sheepdog Cromiti, bought on a trip to the United Kingdom for the National Sheepdog Championships, all the border collies are bred by Mr McKenzie, with many triallers and farmers around Victoria the proud owners of a McKenzie sheepdog.
“You do accumulate a lot of dogs,” Mr McKenzie says with a smile.
“Unless I keep selling dogs I’ll end up with 20 old dogs.”
For more on this story, pick up your North West Farmer insert — free inside Wednesday’s Guardian (November 11).
