It's often spouted that one of the secrets to success in any team sport endeavour is camaraderie.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
You don't have to spend long with Scott Miller, Todd Carey, Bryson Roser and Barry Biffin for long to see they're not short on that.
Sure, they're not afraid to throw barbs at each other, particularly at Biffin, but beneath the quips is a respect and friendship that has helped them become one of the best tentpegging teams around.
They are the current Australian, NSW and Queensland A grade champions, and in the seven or so years they've been tentpegging together have won multiple national and state title ribbons as well as the prestigious Golden Livermore Lance at the Sydney Royal Easter Show four times, including in 2024.
They've even represented Australia as a combination in a World Cup qualifier.
Along the way they've also enjoyed their share of individual success.
Roser has won the Kirsty Allen Perpetual Trophy for Skill at Arms at the Sydney Royal now five times while one or other of Biffin, Miller or Carey have been crowned Champion Individual Rider five of the last seven years.
One of the pinnacle events for the sport, this year's show was the 37th that the Tamworth Tentpeggers have competed in, and the overall win, their seventh.
Biffin has been involved in all seven and is the only remaining active member from when the club, in its current iteration, was formed in 1984.
"We were playing polocrosse, Wayne Biffin, Laurie Andrews and myself, and the season finished and we just wanted something to do with the horses," Biffin recalled.
"Laurie was ex mounted police and we said can you teach us to tentpeg and that's what he did."
Forty years later, he's still going strong.
"I just enjoy it," he said.
Elaborating on that, he said "the people involved".
"And it's taken us to a lot of places," he continued.
"I've been overseas five or six times."
"Plus we've had countries come out here."
The Biffin name is a key link in the club's continual existence.
Roser, who is the second longest-serving member having been part of the team for now 16 years, Miller and Carey all attribute how they got into the sport to either Barry or Wayne, or both.
Believed to have originated in India, tentpegging takes its name from the military exercise where cavalry would ride through an enemy camp pre-dawn and remove the pegs holding the tent in place with their spears, which would then make it easier for the foot soldiers to attack the enemy as they tried to get out of their collapsed tents.
It has evolved to today, a mounted rider, or pair or team, riding at a gallop and attempting to pierce, pick up and carry away a small ground target using a sword or lance.
Miller, who is the most recent addition to the team, after being converted to the sport from horseball about 10 years ago now, spoke of the "exhilaration" when asked what he enjoys about it.
"There's no other sport like it," he said.
"You've got to imagine you're going 45k's an hour on a galloping horse.
"You've pretty much got no contact with the horse, you're hanging off the side with a lance or a sword, trying to pick up this thing at that speed."
"It takes a lot to be able to do that."
More than just the physical skill, it is also "a mental game".
"Because the moment you think you've got it, that's when you miss a peg, or two or three," he said.
Usually having more than one run, that's where that camaraderie helps.
"When you miss one and you're swearing and cursing you've got your team-mates to distract you," Miller said.
"Bryson can tell me his truck's still getting hot, or Todd wants to talk about trailers or Barry wants to talk about what food he's going to eat at dinner time."
"We've all got our own little devices that we talk to each other about and just through that relationship we can relax, reset ourselves and hopefully go again."
Carey, impressively, didn't miss a peg across the whole four nights at the show.
The former Tamworth rugby stalwart swapped the boots for the lance about 14 years ago.
He was familiar with horses, having gone through pony club, and played polocrosse and a few other horse sports over the years.
It's the second straight year he's won the top individual accolade, and again it came down to a run-off, for which they use smaller one-inch pegs.
"You can only just see them," Carey said.
Next in the team's sights are the Australian Championships at Gilgandra in late August.
Then they've got the NSW Championships at Dorrigo in October, which will double as qualification for next year's show.
