Stockman Show - Longreach

The Outback Stockman's Show is held within the grounds of the Stockman's Hall of Fame and runs from April to October (most days). We went along to watch this show while staying in Longreach - what a treat. Lachie Cossor performed our show and he is a real live stockman - explaining the type of work they did as well as how they trained their horses.

Lachie told us how to break in a horse and what they require the horses to do during a working day. He had a horse that lay on its back for him to clean the shoes and then lay on its side while he sat on the chest of the horse to sing a song. Lachie said the most important thing was to trust your horse and for your horse to trust you. He has another horse at a different stage of training and was able to stand on its back - the horse did not move. He explained about a pack horse and showed (using leg nobbles) how to pack and unpack, as well as the use of a feed bag. 

Lachie also demonstrated to the audience how important it was to have good working dogs - these dogs have a natural instinct to round up the sheep. After the sheep were put back into the pen the dogs came wandering into the crowd for a pat.  The last demonstration of the show was him riding a large bull into the arena and then sitting on it while singing. We were able to pat the bull at the end of the show – it weighed about 1300 kgs and was massive.

I really enjoyed this show and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Longreach.