The dogs may be the stars of the show, but behind the scenes of the South Island sheepdog championships, two men and their horses are the unsung heroes. Video / ODT
Ākitio Sheepdog Trial Club and its unique course in Pongaroa faced extreme uncertainty after Cyclone Gabrielle. The club managed to get funding from the Ministry of Primary Industries and was able to reinstate the course to a usable standard ready for the 2024 season.
As the hills slipped away and rain kept pouring during Cyclone Gabrielle, the images of devastation began to emerge and so did images of the Ākitio sheepdog trial course in Pongaroa.
Both the zig-zag and the straight hunt courses had been severely damaged due to slips, and the club’s future was put on hold as a decision was made to cancel the 2023 annual dog trial event, which at the time was just nine days away.
Chris Pullen with his huntaway at the course in Pongaroa before it was destroyed.
The course is unique to the dog trialling community because all four courses can be watched from the clubhouse at once.
Ākitio Sheepdog Trial Club president Chris Pullen said he was “gobsmacked” at the damage he saw to the courses on the Riddell block, which was previously part of the larger property Waikaka.
One of the four courses that was severely damaged putting the future of the club on hold.
“It looked quite shocking.
“Most of the hills on the hunt courses just slipped and destroyed the course, we thought they probably would be unrepairable.”
The club decided to form a subcommittee and received $2500 through the Ministry of Primary Industries that went towards repairs.
While the cyclone caused the initial problem, the ongoing wet weather conditions made it difficult to get any work done until November.
The repairs were carried out by Dave Monk from Crosshills Contracting who was tasked with getting the course back to a reasonable standard.
“He went up there with the bulldozer and pushed the slips out and pushed holes in and eventually, he tidied the whole job up,” Pullen said.
The job is done but the straight hunt course, which was badly damaged, had to be moved from the original site 50m away.
“We had a lot of good wishes from a lot of people within the dog trialling community.”
A lot of work has gone into repairing the course for February.
The dog trial club is important to the small community because it brings people together from throughout the North Island to compete.
“The town is slowly shrinking, and so if we lost our dog trial club that would be another blow.”
The annual dog trial will be held on Saturday and Sunday, February 24-25.
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
