Ken Vary knows a lot about Tabulam and about horses.

He grew up in Tabulam and still lives in his childhood home. He has 15 horses at his property and his daughter Carolyn says that isn’t many for Ken.

“I’ve got a steel hip and we’ve downsized the horses,” Ken said.

Ken is a regular at the Bonalbo Show where he sat watching the horse competitions. In his younger years, Ken mustered and went to rodeos.

At 77, he may ride less but he can spot a quality horse with no trouble at all.

In 1976 he won Campdraft Horse of the Year at the North Coast National with his horse Gift.

“I travelled out west and everywhere,” Ken said.

Then a year later when he was at the Casino Show, he felt a sharp pain.

“It went straight through me and felt like a tear,” he said.

It was a hernia and the “doctor stitched me up”, Ken said.

The doctor told him to give up rodeos for a year.

It took him a while to get his strength back and while waiting to ride again, he entered “two good fillies” in the Brisbane Royal Show.

They came first and second.

“I went back the next year with a new filly,” he said.

“I beat them again and they came down and bought the filly.”

Ken laughs about his days horsing around but his passion for horses is as keen as it ever was as he checks out the horses entering the show ring at Bonalbo.

This article appeared in the Richmond River Independent, 21 April 2021.