By Melissa Blewitt

Barellan Working Clydesdales president and master horseman Bruce Bandy, together with teamsters Steve Johnson, Lake Cargelligo, Aleks Berzins, Exeter, and Allison Prentice, Kamarah, will combine horses on an attempt to break the Australia record of 50 horses harnessed to a wool wagon at the Good Old Days Festival at the Barellan showground in October.
The record-breaking attempt will be part of the expanded three-day event taking place from 3 to 5 October, is organised by the Barellan Working Clydesdale committee.
Mr Bandy said to harness more than 50 horses would take around two hours and be a spectacle in itself.
The team will comprise Clydesdale, Australian Draught Horses, and Suffolk Punch breeds, all harnessed four abreast and driven by Bruce Bandy, Aleks Berzins and Steve Johnson, with Shane Carroll, Barellan, on the brake, and pulling an historic Bennett tabletop wagon loaded with wool bales.
Added to the program this year will be the Tim Peel Perpetual Youth Award to encourage young people under the age of 30 to show initiative and leadership qualities in maintaining the nation’s heritage. This new award will be judged on Sunday, October 5 in conjunction with the horse teams for the Teamsters Trophy and the mule teams for the Little Teamsters Trophy.
Mr Peel, a master harness maker from Borambola, NSW, will be honoured with the Australian premiere of “Heavy Horses and Harness’’, on the Saturday evening and produced by West Wyalong Movies.
Barellan Working Clydesdales secretary Fiona Kibble said the festival had undergone rapid organic growth to the new three-day format with thousands of visitors travelling from around Australia and internationally to attend.
“It is exciting times for not only the committee but for also Barellan and the Narrandera Shire to have such a unique, pioneering event – the only one of its kind in the world where visitors can see horses, camels, bullocks, donkeys, mules and goats all working in harness on-site,” she explained.
“Our new format includes many tangible exciting experiences for all family members where they can see, hear, touch and taste our pioneer heritage. Our Friday program will be quite different to what we have provided in the past but retain our popular grand parade through the main street of Barellan.
“The not-for-profit event is run by volunteers and raises funds which are reinvested back into our community through new infrastructure.”
The Good Old Days Festival is hailed as the biggest tourism event in the Narrandera Shire and contributes almost $2 million to the regional economy.
The event set its own record in 2024 with 35 horses in harness and will attempt to better the national record set in in the mid 1980s at Carrara, Gold Coast, on Australia Day by Don Ross and Bluey Bunyan. That team comprised 12 spans of four abreast and two back in the shafts.