But, with the state in one of the most severe droughts in recent history, no one complained too much about having their sports postponed or cancelled. 

True to form and following tradition, the first scheduled round of the new Armidale District Cricket season was washed out. 

Nearly 30 millimetres  was recorded and that amount was enough to saturate the pitches around the town. 

Armidale cricket president Mike Porter said while it was a bit disappointing to cancel their opening round, it was a small price to pay with so many farms needing the downpours. 

“Everyone was ready to go and we knew on Friday morning we weren't going to have any more cricket for the weekend so we called off all the first and second grade and reallocated third grade to synthetics and then they were just too wet on Saturday morning as well,” he said. 

“It is a bit of a pain but we have to take what we can get with the farmers needing it at the moment.” 

Armidale Riding Club were forced to postpone their annual two-day championship dressage event at the Kentucky Street Equestrian Centre.

The October Championships is the biggest event on the club’s calendar with horses and riders coming from all over the region to compete. 

The club’s members have also been affected by the drought in sourcing hay and feed for their mounts and president Kerry Crees said while it is disappointing to postpone the event, they are happy to see the sky open up. 

“To me, our reasoning for cancelling was a double-edged sword – the fact that we were having to postpone our championship but then it was good to see the rain,” she said. 

“It is tough to have to do that because the work that a lot of the committee members have put in to make this competition run last weekend will now have to be re-done next year but it is good to see the rain, we are certainly not complaining about it raining.”

The competition is planned to be run on March 9 and 10 next year. 

Armidale Show is on March 8 and 9 but Crees is hoping they can run alongside each other smoothly. 

“It is the show weekend but the show runs the Friday and Saturday and most people that ride the dressage are not going to be impacted by showing, some people will be but that is the best we could do,” Crees said. 

“Some of them will show but hopefully we will pick them on the Sunday. 

“We are running the same program and hopefully we get plenty of rain in between and good weather to run our competition.” 

The postponing of the championships also failed to dampen what Crees described as a strong year for the club. 

“We have had a very successful year as far as competitions are concerned and I have had positive feedback from our riders enjoying our unofficial competitions as well as our official competitions,” she said. 

“We do have our hack show coming up on the second Sunday of November.

“That will be our final competition of the year and we will have our weekend of our Christmas party to look forward to. We look forward to starting up again next year with our unofficial competition in February.”

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