NSW stockman's Kelpies travel 60km a day to win this year's working dog title

The 2022 Cobber Challenge Relay winners are a team of four from Koonama Working Kelpies - Cracka, Drake, Sorcha and Bundy from Boorowa.

"I'm on top of the world," their handler Nick Foster said.

The team has been busy managing more than 20,000 sheep and cattle - mainly mustering and herding for the duration of the three-week competition.

Twelve teams of working dogs from across Australia and New Zealand this year competed in the 2022 Cobber Challenge relay.

This year's popular competition featured teams and not individual farm champions as it has in the past to celebrate the teamwork which goes into running a farm.

"I loved every minute of it," Mr Foster said.

"It's helped me understand how my dogs work.

"For example, yard work is really tiring on them, but it was interesting to see they don't actually do that many kilometres in the yard. It's the mental effort that's the challenge."

Nick describes the Kelpies as part of his family, and in fact the four dogs are related. Cracka and Drake are brothers, and Cracka sired Scorcha and Bundy.

"My dogs have also been doing trials throughout the entire competition. Cracka took home third place in the NSW Championship trials, and we've been in some local comps too. He won Murringo, an open yard trial during the competition as well.

"I can't believe they can be doing this many kilometres, and then placing in trials on the weekends. I'm extremely proud of all my dogs."

The Koonama Working Kelpies crew shared the GPS collar around, to track how hard they worked.

Each day Nick picked one of the dogs to wear the GPS collar.

A few times, the dog wearing the collar recorded more than 60km in a day.

"It's been a crazy time. We had terrible weather, wind and rain. But it meant we had stock all over the place and plenty to do," Nick said.

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At the end of the three-week competition, the team's average speed was 10.14km/h, their total distance was 853.7km, and they spent over 84 hours working.

Representing Western Australia, Hill View Kelpies - Flick, Millie, Suzie and Tez - came in second.

Ryan Eade and his Kelpies run 45,000 Merino sheep on a 50,000-hectare property in Bodallin. They also took out the top spot for speed, with an average of 11.1km/h.

As farm manager, Ryan missed a few days early in the competition due to his management responsibilities - but that only made him thirsty for the top spot.

"I didn't think we would catch up to Nick and his team, but I wanted to give it my best shot. It's been an amazing experience seeing the kilometres my dogs do. It's not even our busiest time, that's in April when we're shearing," says Ryan.

Parwan Prime from Myrniong in Victoria - Dane Simmonds and his Kelpies Ruby and Tully - took out third.

"We work seven days a week. The Cobber Challenge Relay was fun to do. I would've been happy wherever my dogs ended up and it is so good to see what they do," Mr Simmonds said..

Tasmanian team Redhead Kelpies were edged out of the top three in the last few days. Jordan Flemming and his young crew of dogs - Nip, Nuts and Claire - work a 20,000-acre full-stock farm in Fingal.