AELEC Arena has been a hive of activity with the return of The Big Show.
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Drive into the car park of the world-class Tamworth facility and you see number plates of people travelling from near and far.
Queensland, Victoria and even South Australia feature among a plethora of those from New South Wales.
Those vehicles pull even grander floats as the horses used for an event described as the richest Roping championships in the Southern Hemisphere, travel in style.
A series of cars from event sponsor Mitsubishi, cold hard cash and top of the range saddles are among the prizes on offer throughout the six-day event.
You really get the feeling this is an event that lives up to its name.
A plethora of souvenir stands, a big crowd in attendance, especially for a Wednesday afternoon and the food stalls doing a roaring trade.
Take the elevator down to ground level and you’re struck by the size of the venue.
A wonderfully-dressed announcer says to the crowd that this is the event you have come to see, the Open Roping.
The event features two riders who need to rope a calf sprinting at good pace.
The first rider is looking to control the upper body with the second to rope the feet.
A sheet given to our photographer Peter Hardin shows 38 different duos are lining-up.
Darcy Kersh and Liam Davison kick things off and in the best part of seven seconds, complete their first task.
Some riders such as Davison, Shane Kenny and Clay Bush will undergo more than one run.
Davison later partners Jace Land and Campbell Hobson.
As the riders tackle the challenge, some fail to wrangle in the speedy customers.
The joy of watching from up close is you get a great view of the action.
But our vantage point becomes a little more congested as horse and rider wait for another shot at the title.
The only reason this writer was aware of that came as a result of some warm breath on my neck while dutifully penning down some results.
The pace of the competition is as frenetic as Peel St during the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival.
One run down and within a matter of seconds, the next duo is up.
As Peter is completing his action photos, we come across two young blokes with rodeo in their veins.
They are Matthew Todd, 8, from Narrabri and Parker O’Neile, 7, of Tamworth.
“We’re competing in the dummy roping,” Todd said.
“We’re good mates, we met at the rodeo.”
Following our chat with the youngsters, we race to catch a full elevator.
A bloke who has just finished competing was watching a replay of his run, thanks to The Big Show being live streamed through Facebook and YouTube.
This writer asked how did you go?
“No good mate,” he replied and walked out of the elevator.
But he’ll get another chance with The Big Show running through until Saturday.