Preparations for Saturday's show at Lilydale are well in hand. Entries are being received freely, and, given a fine day, the committee are assured of success. Both the apple and agricultural trophy sections will be well represented, while in the home products and culinary sections a record exhibition is promised.
Visitors to the sports are also assured of a good day, as 150 entries have been received for the different events, while there will also be a trial both of hunters and ladies' hunters, and a novelty race.
LILYDALE SHOW. (1914, March 26). Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 - 1954), p. 2 (DAILY). Retrieved December 10, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50751129
PMahnken comment:
"... a trial both of hunters and ladies' hunters". I've never heard or read much about horse racing in Lilydale district except that there were circular tracks for occasional events at Karoola and Bangor, amateur I presume. I've never heard of hunts in this district as there were in the Midlands. Our farmers had draught horses for ploughing and harvesting, carriers had teams and wagons, families had a Sunday horse to pull the buggy to church. I know of leisure riding (my aunt Ria McCarthy used to go for rides with teacher Marjie Smith) and as young fellows, my brothers and I did a bit of bush bashing, exploring on horseback old shoe tracks and such in the 1970s. My father considered pet horses just wasteful grass eaters, ripping up paddocks with their hooves. In more recent decades there is a pony club and some men, like Theo Ebbelaar, participated in endurance rides.
Looking to understand better "... a trial both of hunters and ladies' hunters", I read in a discussion :
"In the UK we have classes for Lightweight hunters, Middleweight hunters, Heavyweight hunters, Small hunters and Ladies hunters and Working Hunters .......and then we have all the classes for Hunter ponies!"
Pioneer communities did not have time for all that.