A LOSSIEMOUTH FIELD was the unlikely venue for a world-beating display of farming skills as the best ploughing enthusiasts gathered for the 53rd Scottish Championships.
The event at Wester Greens brought around 200 competitors with the stars of the show the traditional ‘horse pairs’ who were competing for national titles that would lead to European and World championship qualification.
Honours were also being fought out for the home nations championships over the two days – which started ominously as rain kept the number of spectators down on Saturday, but a sunny day on Sunday saw many more knowledgeable or just plain curious spectators.
A star of the event was five-time world reversible champion, Andrew Mitchell Senior, who as expected emerged the winner of the Scottish overall reversible title once again. His son Andrew Junior meanwhile emerged as conventional plough champion – refusing to let go a stranglehold he has had on that discipline for 11 years.
Andrew Junior commented: “There was not much in it this time – it is just about attention to detail and doing the whole job right from start to finish.”
The wins qualify both family members from Forfar to represent Scotland at the forthcoming world ploughing championships, which will be held in York next year.
In the home championships event, contested by the four home nations plus the Republic of Ireland, the conventional winner was Sean Keating from Eire, with Welshman John Lewis taking the overall title.
Chairman of the event was John Tait who described Lossiemouth as a perfect venue for a great weekend: “We had rain on Saturday morning and that perhaps hurt crowds a bit but Sunday was a fantastic day with perfect ploughing conditions. I would not have liked to have been a judge – it was very good ploughing all over.”
A full list of results and details from the championship can be found online at the Scottish Ploughing Championships website.