Bangalow Agricultural Show — Green Grounds, Good People
Celebrating friendship, horsemanship, and showing in Australia—not just ribbons.
- Who: Mel & Kathryn with Welsh ponies Gee and Angelo
- Where/When: Bangalow Showground, Bangalow, NSW — 14/15 November 2025
- Why: To promote horsemanship, friendship and participation rather than ribbons
A rain-washed showground, warm volunteers and two ponies learning together made Bangalow a perfect community show day
Kathryn and I took Gee and Angelo to Bangalow Showground for a rainy, lush weekend. We left from Glenreagh and Moonee Beach respectively, drove the Pacific Highway and arrived after ~2.5 hours. The Bangalow Show Society ran a friendly, well-organised event with small but adequate stables, hot showers and a lively bar where we watched ringside.
Day 1 (Friday) Gee competed in in‑hand classes — our focus was horsemanship over ribbons as it was our first show as a team. We were had some success and even qualified to compete for Supreme Champion Led horse of the show. What a line up that was! The Beautiful Stock Horse Stallion was awarded the prize and we were thrilled to be in such a quality line up of horses and ponies.
Kathryn’s focus was the ridden classes with Angelo and working on fitness on the ring. His manners were impeccable and he proved once again to be a truly quality pony and delight to take out to an event.
After the classes and ponies were washed, fed and settled in to their stables we still had plenty of time to relax and have drinks at the bar watching the ponies, (you could see their stables from our seats) and were treated to some delicious food all in the one convenient location. The ringside entertainment and country atmosphere at this show is fantastic.
Once the sun went down after a final check on our ponies, skipped out the stables, topped up hay and water we retired to our respective horse floats for a great nights sleep.
Day 2 (Saturday) This was Kathryn and Angelo’s day as my classes had finished Friday. I was assigned to get the coffees and generally assist with the show prep and grooming. Angelo showed great improvement even from the day before and the mornings classes progressed smoothly. We were packed up and ready to head home at about midday. We’ll be back next year!
Tip: bring torches and waterproofs for unpowered camping, have everything packed up well before the sun goes down 🙂
Fuel up at Ballina service centre if coming from the south. The fuel station in the main street of Bangalow is not big enough for vehicles towing horse floats. (Learnt that the hard way!)
Looking forward to the next show!
