Has success changed Pete Comiskey?

Story from July 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

The simple answer is no, but perhaps we had first better explain the success referred to in the title. In May 2018 Pete travelled to Willinga Park on the South Coast of NSW and won the inaugural Willinga Park World Championship Gold Buckle Campdraft, and with it a first prize cheque of $100,000, and no that is not a typo. Fast forward to May 2019 and Pete was back at Willinga and again rode away with the $100,000 first prize. Luck might come into it once, but back to back wins when it is easy to imagine the feverish competition, is an impressive achievement indeed and suggests there is much more than the always needed luck involved. Pete, of course, is no unknown and is and has been one of the country’s top campdrafting riders, World Champion no less, for many years.
If you think the wins have enabled Pete to kick back, put his feet up and sip beers overlooking his estate, you would be mistaken, as when Horse Deals caught up with Pete for a chat, he was attending to some weaners on the home property whilst looking after his 16 month old daughter Leila. And they say men can’t multitask!

“The wins haven’t changed my life,” says Pete, “but they have made life a little easier.”

So where did it all begin for Pete Comiskey?

“I was born in Rockhampton and we had a family property at Capella in the Central Highlands of Queensland. I did seven years of correspondence study and spent three years at St Brendan’s Boarding School in Yeppoon. In 1988 Dad bought this property here near Nebo (180km southwest of Mackay) and I have been here ever since. I started campdrafting at eight years of age, traveling with my two brothers and Mum and Dad who were keen horse and cattle people and hard workers. There was always plenty to do so my brothers and I got a lot of experience chasing cattle and being in the bush. That teaches you a lot about cattle and to be really successful at campdrafting you have to have a bit of knowledge with the cattle, but the relationship with the horse is the most important thing to drafting success.

“My partner Bryony is also passionate about the horse operation, playing a large role in their health and fitness and getting them ready to run. We breed, buy and sell horses and have between 40 and 50 horses and Brittany (Rodann Rip Off Chex) that I rode at Willinga Park this year is a half-sister to Paris (Rodann Roanie’s Destiny) that I rode last year. They are both out of Rodann Roanie’s Chex, the most successful mare I have ever campaigned, owned by Rod and Anne Carpenter. I have four children, Clayton, 23, is involved in the rural industry, Justin, 18 is heading to university, Peter who is six and a very keen little horseman and Leila who at 16 months old just loves the horses and rides on the front of the saddle with me.

“It has been an honour to have won those two big drafts down at Willinga. Campdrafting has been a sport to me for over 30 years and the big wins have been helpful to our operation and have made it more comfortable to get around. The money allows us to do a bit more, breed the horses we would like to breed and you have a few more options with what you do; for instance attend to the infrastructure around the property. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of horses on the truck and have a half million dollar rig, so we have already invested a lot of time and money into what we do. Moving forward we are hopeful that some more of these big drafts come along, but it could not happen every weekend, as it would then become too expensive for most people to do. If we had a couple of those big events every year that would be good. It’s like the Melbourne Cup, they only have one every year and it is fantastic, but that couldn’t happen every week.

“Hard work has put us in this position and after 30 years we enjoy every campdraft we attend. The sport has become more than just recreation for rural people and is growing in popularity with people from the city as well. But at its heart, campdrafting is about rural people getting away for a short time from the worries of the drought and floods, etc. They take the truck and the van and the children and socialise with people who talk the same language. It is all about the horses too and once it was an amateur sport where the people living and working on the land would breed and train up their horses for the campdraft. Nowadays people are actually making a living out of breeding and training and getting horses going for the sales. It has become more professional, but it still maintains that family feel. Whatever your standard, you can compete against the best in the world and that is a unique feature of campdrafting. Not everyone who plays tennis can have a game with Roger Federer every weekend, but you can go against the best campdrafters every weekend. And the thing is, when you are competing against and watching the better riders, you are going to learn a lot quicker. People donate time and cattle so that the campdraft can stay affordable to the greatest number of people, and that is the difference from many other sports where everyone involved has to get paid.

“We have 2000 head of cattle on our family property Westpoint, which allows us the lifestyle to train and compete. We try to take horses to as many campdrafts as we can, and at one point we were doing 35 drafts a year. Now I am doing a few less drafts and I am fortunate enough to travel all over Australia conducting campdrafting clinics. The most important thing I talk about at these clinics is safety and developing a relationship with your horse. If you get along well with your horse and it reacts to your signals and you are able to handle it and be confident on it, that is a very important part of the whole thing. All walks of life are involved with drafting today and they all must understand the importance of getting a connection with the horse. Also the socialising within the campdraft world helps people with horsesmanship and learning about all the little things that can make such a big difference and that passing on of knowledge helps to make the sport safer. My best advice for anyone getting into campdrafting is find a good horseperson and find a good horse, the best to suit your personality and lifestyle and try to become the best you can be. Like anything, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

“Campdrafting is a sport where three minds are involved; the rider, the horse and the steer and you have to have a bit of luck with that as well. I took nine horses down and qualified three for the Final at Willinga this year and I lost the steer with the first two. Then you become involved with psychological mind games; have I selected the right beast etc? You have to have a competitive mind. You have to be calm and poke along steadily and when you get the right beast go for it. However, there is always pressure.

“As I have said, the mares I won on in 2018 and 2019 are half-sisters. We have been producing competitive horses for over 30 years and that has been one of my rewards. There are so many people who have helped me over the years, too many to mention, but I have been very fortunate. My family are so supportive and Bryony’s and my parents were down at Willinga Park to witness both of my wins. My brother Steven has just won his first ACA Open Rider title and he will come to Willinga with me next year. I am very lucky to have the family support that I have, and yes we did have a good party on the night of the final.”

Article by Anna Sharpley.

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