The Australian Brumby Challenge 2022

We are delighted to bring the Australian Brumby Challenge and as always, are working hard to make this special event completely horse centered and a place where kind training methods can be showcased.

In the Australian Brumby Challenge, Trainers are allocated a Brumby through a ballot system. These Brumbies have been caught from the wild by passive trapping, from either Bogong High Plains in Victoria or Kosciuszko National Park or Bago State Forest in New South Wales. All Brumbies are brought back to our Brumby Junction sanctuary where they have lived in wild herds since their capture. The stallions have all been gelded, mares allowed time to foal down and raise their foals and all Brumbies have been microchipped, wormed, vaccinated etc.

Approved Trainers will pick up their allocated Brumbies from our Sanctuary in July and take them home to train for the next 135 days. Every Trainer will post monthly updates through this time and then we will meet again at the Brumby Festival in Yarra Junction in November for two days of finals classes.

Our finals classes are all based around the relationship between Brumby and Trainer and include Handling and Conditioning, where they are judged on catching, float loading and general handling as well as the Brumbies physical condition, Obstacles, which the Trainer can enter either Ridden or Lead and the Freestyle which is for the first time ever, a non ridden event.

After listening to our Trainers in past events, for the first time ever, the Brumbies will not be auctioned off to approved bidders at the completion of the event. The Application fee is also the Purchase fee of the Brumby and from the time they are picked up from our Sanctuary, the Brumbies will be owned by their Trainers.

Another first is our Mentorship event – students of approved Trainers can apply to also enter the Australian Brumby Challenge and train their Brumby alongside their Mentor! This program is strictly limited to four places and we suspect that these will go quickly, so don’t delay if you are interested!