SPECTATOR numbers at last week’s Balmoral Show were boosted by a cohort of 111 people on study tours in Ireland through Equipeople.

On Friday, 37 members of 4H young farmers’ clubs from all over Canada and a group of 32 students and lecturers from Penn State University in the United States attended the show. On Saturday, it was the turn of 42 members of Challenging Pioneers, who are a group of families with Irish descent living in Newfoundland, Canada. For 4H and Challenging Pioneers, Balmoral was the centrepiece of their visits to Ireland.

The Penn State students are studying Animal Science with an emphasis on equine, so they will visit many different yards as well as farms with water buffalo and alpacas. They will also see sheep dogs at work, the Donkey Sanctuary and much more during their two-week trip.

Caroline Lane, Managing Director of Equipeople, who was looking after the Penn State group, said: “We are delighted to welcome so many people into Ireland. We have such great horse and agricultural sectors and we love showing them off.”

Of course, there were the usual visits to the show of many large groups of schoolchildren of various ages, most of whom seemed to be wearing the famed red Spar cowboy hats, which could be obtained for a donation to the company’s charity for this year, Marie Curie.